Ceremonies of Strife
by Lomonaaeren
Summary: HPDM slash. Sequel to Soldier's Welcome. Harry and Draco's second year of Auror training, with unicorn ghosts, the risen dead, and a secret order of assassins, not to mention Nihil's war. COMPLETE.
1. Harder Than You Think

**Title: **Ceremonies of Strife

**Disclaimer: **J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.

**Pairings: **Harry/Draco, Ron/Hermione, Lucius/Narcissa

**Rating: **R

**Warnings: **Violence, Dark magic, angst, profanity, sex (slash and het), character deaths (not the main characters).

**Summary: **Sequel to _Soldier's Welcome. _As Harry and Draco head in to their second year of Auror training, they are resolved to try and balance the relationship between them with their personal difficulties. That might be a bit harder than they think when the difficulties include necromancy, Azkaban escapees, unicorn ghosts, the risen dead, a secret order of assassins…and the second war, guided by Nihil.

**Author's Notes: **This is the second part of what I'm calling the Running to Paradise Trilogy, focused on Harry and Draco's Auror training. A reader on AFF called SP777 suggested the idea for this series to me. I'd advise you to read _Soldier's Welcome _first before you try to read this one, as this story doesn't spend a lot of time recapitulating the first one.

**Ceremonies of Strife**

_Chapter One—Harder Than You Think_

"I thought you would wish to hear the story of how I made my escape, son."

Draco looked up. His father stood in the entrance of the sitting room he'd chosen as his sanctuary, a distantly amused look on his face. That look said he knew that Draco was hiding from him, but he would tolerate such foolishness as long as it produced no material hurt to the family.

Draco took a deep breath and sat up. He had prepared himself for this moment. That didn't lessen how hard it actually was to visit it, but it also didn't lessen the _necessity_ for facing it.

"Of course, Father," he said calmly. "The last escapes I remember were orchestrated by the Dark Lord, and I must admit I am curious why the Department of Magical Law Enforcement is not yet knocking on our doors."

"That Department," whispered Lucius, but he said nothing more, not even when Draco raised an eyebrow to invite him to continue. He strode into the sitting room and took the only other seat, a chair opposite Draco's, while looking around him with the expression of slow contemplation that had raised Draco's hackles even as a child.

Draco leaned back in his chair and tried not to let the expression disconcert him now. Most of the décor in this room was original to the Manor: the marble walls, the silver sconces for torches on the walls, the smooth green and white stone that framed the fireplace. The only additions Draco had made were the shelves that contained his books—themselves plain ebony, absolutely unobjectionable—and the chairs, which had been straight and wooden when he took them over. This had been a room meant to encourage inopportune visitors to leave again. Draco had Transfigured the chairs into substantially more comfortable ones with thick cushions and subdued but brilliant colors.

Lucius perhaps found enough to satisfy him, because he leaned back in the chair, settled his shoulders only once against the cloth, and then said, "But first, we have something to speak of."

Draco met his eyes stolidly. He could think of only two things that would cause his father to speak in that tone, that tone that said he was uncertain of Draco's obedience, and offended because he had to be uncertain. Either Draco's work as an Auror, or his relationship with Harry, had probably come to his father's attention.

"It is folly," Lucius said quietly. "You must know that."

"I do not know what you speak of," Draco returned in the same tone, and saw his father pause. He would not have done that before the war, and Lucius had been in Azkaban since his trial. Draco could practically see his father revising what he knew of his son and making the careful, necessary changes on the scroll of his mind.

"This decision to train as an Auror," Lucius said. "Your mother tells me that you saw it as a road to power."

"That," Draco said, "and one of the few things that would make people cease to distrust me based on my family name."

Lucius leaned forwards, face flushing slightly. Draco raised an eyebrow. That meant his father was more in earnest than he had thought, and he prepared to listen to the words with more interest and less sense that the conclusion of the conversation was foregone.

"But that distrust is your glory, Draco, do you not understand?" Lucius whispered. "Distrust is only a few steps from fear. And the Malfoy name should be feared, held as a dagger to the throat of those who might oppose us, gliding like a specter along their skin when they think of a course of action that they know would bring them into conflict with our family."

Draco could remember a time, before the war, or even during it, when such talk as this would have impressed him. Lucius could use metaphors, yes.

But his fine talk hadn't stopped him from going to prison, or—and this was more important to Draco—serving the Dark Lord. There had been little that Lucius could do to persuade the Wizengamot that he wasn't guilty when he wore the brand of his guilt on his arm. But it had been his choice to sink to one knee before the Dark Lord and kiss the hem of his robe, and Draco was never going to forget that.

_You talk of power, of being feared rather than loved, but you were the one who gave up the Malfoy power when you chose the Dark Lord. And I know that he didn't threaten you, Father. You chose it in the service of greater power. If _you _can betray the ideals of our family in that way, I will not allow you to talk me out of my decision, which was made in the same freedom._

But Draco said nothing of that. He simply nodded and said, "Yes, sir. I know that many of our ancestors have done the same thing and thought the same thing."

The ambiguity in his words slipped past his father's ears (indeed, Draco wondered if he had the ability to notice it). Lucius smiled. Draco had once lived for that smile and the warmth it lent a face colder than the marble walls and floors of the Manor.

"Good. Then you know that you must tell the Ministry you will not be returning to the Auror program in September."

Draco bowed his head. Let his father take it for agreement. It was not, but Draco had learned to conserve his strength when the battles looked hopeless. For months, he had refrained from demanding answers from Harry even though he would have liked to, and patiently put together what he already knew from the little clues that Harry dropped about himself. He could make his father content now and look for the moment when his guard would fall.

"Good, my son," Lucius said softly. He leaned back in the chair, which, Draco realized now, he'd been poised to rise from. Draco turned his head slightly to the side to conceal his smile. _What would he have done if I refused? Was he going to strangle me right here? _"And now I will tell you the tale of my escape."

But he didn't, not right away. He called a house-elf instead and ordered hot chocolate, spiced with things that Draco didn't recognize the name of. Draco leaned back in his chair and did his best to appear both drowsy and slightly discontent. His father would be less suspicious of rebellion at the moment, since he probably expected Draco to assent to his declaration but still resent it.

Draco wondered if the greater surprise was that he hadn't considered obeying, not for one moment. Lucius was still the head of the family. He was still Draco's father. He had been Draco's idol. And even though he wasn't anymore, Draco thought that he should still come to some sort of an accommodation with him.

But right now, his obstinacy was quiet and soft and implacable as a snowdrift. He was not going to do what his father told him. He hadn't considered that for a moment. He would not consider it now.

When the chocolate was spiced to his father's satisfaction, Lucius took a sip, nodded, and began.

"I have always kept my skill at illusions secret," he said. "It wasn't reckoned something to be proud of when I was at Hogwarts. There, the emphasis was on curses, the powerful, flashy spells. Illusion was considered something weak because it was so small and didn't take much effort."

Draco nodded obediently. He had learned a bit about that in Dearborn's Defensive and Offensive Magic class. Illusions could be woven with easy incantations—as long as one didn't mind them looking like mists or transparent scarves. Deeper, stronger work was needed to create glamours that would reliably imitate human faces or the presence of animals and walls, but work so fine that it was as difficult as trying to weave a spiderweb when one wasn't used to it.

"I had thought that I might be able to create an illusion of myself that would breathe and drink and sleep and die, if I ever needed to," Lucius said, and his voice swelled like some organ to fill the space of the sitting room. Draco found himself smiling in spite of his private rebellion. His father had always had some of the traits of the actor, and he was demonstrating them now. "I practiced it until I could fool my eye. I could not, of course, use the real thing in front of my enemies, but several times, during the first war and the second, I darkened its hair slightly and placed it in sight of those who would have reason to look long and hard. Each was satisfied that they saw a dark-haired wizard dying." A small smile played about his lips. "Some recognized the Malfoy features and asked me if I had a distant cousin who might have been on the battlefield."

Draco nodded again. He could admit that his father had been clever; that had never been a problem. Indeed, he had continued to admire, from a chilly intellectual distance, his father's skill with spells and plots long after he had started to distrust that he knew what was best for the family and for Draco's future.

"That illusion was my prize," Lucius said quietly, "my secret weapon. I could recreate it through wandless magic. Of course I thought of it as soon as I went to Azkaban. But what could I do? If I simply placed it in my cell, there was no reason for the guards to open the door. I would have to do something to it to make it seem as if it were sickening immediately—and even then, they might laugh and leave the door shut, and in the meantime I would receive none of the food I needed to outlast the time until they grew less cautious.

"But at last I had my chance. There was a guard I had been watching, because he seemed to care so little for the prisoners when he came to feed us that I might almost have slipped past him. I hoped that he would be in attendance on me that night. But instead, the meal was late in arriving, and then I heard shouts and footsteps pounding up the corridors. I concealed myself in the corner and cast my illusion so that it lay in the center of the cell, only grumbling and turning one shoulder to the noise as it appeared to go back to sleep."

Draco inclined his head, lost in admiration. His father had always been quick to seize the main chance and then act as if he had somehow foreknown that he would need to do so. He couldn't have known, not for sure, that this commotion would lead to his being freed, and he could have risked his secret weapon for nothing. But that had not happened, and now he was out of the cell.

Lucius smiled back at him, apparently tracing every thought that raced through his brain and appreciating them all. Draco lowered his eyes. His satisfaction about the hidden, secret layer of his mind would give him away if he tried to meet his father's gaze too directly.

"Sure enough," Lucius said with some relish, "it turned out to be what I needed. My melancholy guard had killed himself. The humans in Azkaban have become a tight little band since the Ministry got rid of the Dementors—what else should they be, all alone and facing hundreds of prisoners on a desolate island?—and none of them could believe they hadn't noticed his intentions. Their first thought was that a prisoner must have done it. So they checked our cells, and even went so far as to come inside and make sure that none of us had weapons." His smile deepened. "And they were careless enough not to look far into the shadows, and they were careless enough to leave the door of my cell not completely locked."

Draco nodded again, not believing it for a second. If his father had mastered the wandless magic necessary to cast such a complicated illusion, it was entirely likely that he would have mastered some of the smaller spells, such as _Alohomora. _That he had not used them before this was a measure of his patience as well as his cunning. He was determined that there should not be pursuit.

_Remember that, if you rise against him, _Draco told himself. And then he reconsidered, and added, _Since there is no question but that this will be rebellion, remember it._

"And so I left," Lucius said, with a minute shrug of his shoulders, "and left my illusion to sleep in the cell, slowly draining its life away. It will last long enough to fool them. And then you will receive a sad letter announcing my death, and you and Narcissa will put on mourning for a time." A smile that spread all along his lips and appeared to gather up every bit of slyness he'd ever worn. "Then it will be time for me to start my new life."

"Though I grant you have a certain amount of freedom once the whole world believes you to be dead," Draco said carefully, "there is also an inevitable restriction."

"Oh," Lucius said, with an airy wave of his hand that also didn't fool Draco, "I am sure I can use my skills to make the best of my limited situation."

_He can probably weave other glamours, _Draco translated to himself. _And he probably has investments that the Ministry could never touch because it never knew about them._

He turned his head as he heard a footstep outside the room and saw his mother putting her head around the door. Her smile was gentle as she glanced back and forth between the two of them. Draco wondered if he was the only one who saw that it was also strained.

"Lucius," she said quietly, "you promised that you would show me the extent of your vaults in Gringotts, so that I can be prepared when your death is announced." She held up a stack of parchment.

_That was wise, _Draco thought. The Ministry would almost certainly interfere when his father "died" and try to take more than they ought from the vaults, or claim that, since Lucius had been the head of the Malfoy family, that meant the rest of the family couldn't claim the money he had owned. It was nothing more than Draco would expect in a world so hostile to former Death Eaters as this one was.

Then he stopped, and tilted his head in private thought as Lucius nodded to him and accompanied Narcissa out of the room. That was the first time in long months that he had thought of the Ministry as an enemy. He had known that Nihil wanted to kill him, and that Nihil had a grudge against Death Eaters, and he had known that various people in the Auror program didn't like him. But the Ministry as a whole had been, instead, the institution that he was going to serve, once he finished his training as an Auror.

Draco gave a brief, barking laugh now, wondering if these tangled loyalties would destroy him, if Lucius would succeed in changing him so that he thought less about becoming an Auror and more about becoming a Malfoy, and if Lucius would really relinquish so much of his power when Draco supposedly became head of the family.

He couldn't answer those questions yet, and the uncertainty made the muscles in his stomach clench. But he leaned back in his chair and told himself sternly to think about other things.

Because two things were settled. He would not give up his career in the Aurors, no matter what his father thought. It was one of the few decisions he had ever made on his own, and it was his path to power and prestige and a pride that did not depend on the fortunes or failures of other wizards named Malfoy.

And he would not give up Harry.

Some things were _his_, his beyond doubting, no matter what his father said.

*

_Because all is black and darkness, all is grey._

Harry blew his fringe out of his eyes and shook his head in frustration. It was harder than he had thought it would be to understand the necromancy book. The first few pages had seemed straightforward enough; the author had declared that the book would teach the reader how to raise the dead, how to command them, how to make Inferi, and how to use the "magic of death" for power. Harry hadn't been interested in most of those—he already had more power than he knew what to do with, unless he was using it to save and protect other people—but he had smiled at the first claim and then turned the page.

There were so _many _of them. So many people who had died in the war, unfairly, with no chance to say farewell, with no premonition that they were going to die. Harry just wanted to give them one more chance. He didn't think even Hermione would say that that was wrong.

_If it wasn't necromancy._

Harry shifted in his seat and then carefully ignored that part of his mind. He couldn't be _sure _about that. Not absolutely _sure_.

The book spoke with relish about the amount of power a necromancer could achieve and the amount of fear he could cause, and Harry flicked past those pages in boredom. Then came the start of chapter one. Harry had assumed that he could start reading here, because, after all, since the book had said that it would teach someone how to raise the dead first, the first chapter ought to be about that.

No such thing. The first chapter was full of weird pronouncements, recipes for potions that were somehow to be made without using a cauldron, riddles, and instructions for harvesting human skin. Harry flicked through the pages in growing disbelief, wondering why it had been written. It seemed like it wasn't someone's private spellbook for recording information, the way the Half-Blood Prince's book had been Snape's. After all, there was the introduction saying it was meant to teach other people. But how was anyone supposed to make sense of this mess?

_Walk into the grey and extend your hands before you. You will see your future on your left hand and your past on your right. _

What did that _mean_?

Harry let his head fall back against the couch and grumbled under his breath. All he wanted to do was bring the dead back to life. Not such a grand desire. Not a desire that the person who'd written the book could think was bad, or they wouldn't have _written the book_. But trying to fulfill it with this thing was probably going to be impossible.

He hit the cover of the book with one fist out of sheer frustration, and started to close it.

A tingle of sharp, Dark magic jolted through his hands. Harry yelped and pulled them away, staring as the book fell to the floor.

For some time, he let it sit there, studying the cover warily. Something had changed, yes, but he couldn't tell what it was. He could almost hear the scolding that Hermione was sure to give him if she heard about this. _Touching a book that Nihil probably left behind, in the middle of a cave that was trapped so Draco almost died, and before that was used by Death Eaters. Yes, Harry, that makes sense. _

Not to mention what Draco would say.

Harry rubbed his shoulder uncomfortably. The book hadn't touched him there—though he thought he could still feel the pressure and the odd sting it had given his palms—but he was imagining the way Draco would look at him, and then open his mouth and begin to speak.

Or, worse, the way he would simply close his eyes and turn his head away, as if Harry was more trouble to deal with than he was worth.

Harry had promised to stop risking his life so much. He had. He had promised not to try and die if there was any other option. He had. But Draco would probably consider that handling the book was breaking both promises.

_Still…_

Harry swallowed. _I just want them to have a chance. No one ever gave Remus a chance. And Teddy should know his mum. And Sirius ought to be able to see the world around him, the world without Voldemort. And Colin, and Tonks's dad, and Fred…_

He at last cast a shield charm that Dearborn had taught them on his hands and leaned down to pick the book up. Now that he was close to it, he could tell what was different. The cover had, before, been entirely black except for the shabby remains of what might have been a gilt circle. Now it bore letters gleaming in a sort of flat silver that left Harry more uneasy than the blank cover had made him.

_The Art of Summoning._

Harry turned slowly through the pages, ready to drop the book and retreat at a moment's notice if it showed signs of being cursed. The introduction was the same, but the first chapter now began in sentences of connected prose, instead of the scattered recipes and riddles of before. Harry let his eyes rest on the first paragraph, not really intending to read it.

The letters were an odd, dark, rusty color, but he could read them easily enough.

_To call back the dead, one must first have the desire. The desire is the most important component of the summoning, and to place them into a living body instead of to make them Inferi, the desire must be stronger still._

Harry blinked. He wondered if the book had changed and shown him its true self because he had been, at that moment, yearning so strongly to bring people back to life, more strongly than he had ever felt before when he held the book.

He read further, and a slow coil of excitement rose in his stomach. Now the instructions were straightforward. The book was still scattered with warnings that this was dangerous, and could be even more dangerous than he imagined, but at least he could read them now and judge for himself.

At least now he had a chance.

_And so do they._


	2. Greater Problems

Thank you for all the reviews!

_Chapter Two—Greater Problems_

"I wish to see your letter of resignation."

Draco looked up and stared out the window of the library for a moment. The enchanted window showed snow falling, though nothing could be further from the truth; it was a hazy but still sunny day, and Draco had spent most of the afternoon flying above his family's private Quidditch pitch and practicing. But the snow was appropriate to the chill that had settled on him the moment he heard his father's voice.

"My letter resigning from the Auror program, you mean?" he asked at last, and turned to face the doorway where he knew his father stood.

Lucius gave him a narrow smile and folded his arms across his chest. "Yes, that," he said, in a voice that was a better match for the snow than Draco's mood. "What other letters of resignation do you have to write, Draco?"

_From the Malfoy family, perhaps, _Draco thought, as he leaned back in his chair. He had suspected this moment was coming, but had not realized that it would arrive so soon. His heart was hammering, and he had to take several deep breaths before he could focus his eyes on his father's face.

And that confirmed the course he was going to take, if anything did. Once, he knew, he would have obeyed his father without thought or hesitation. Once, he would have obeyed after much grumbling, the way he had when Pansy's father gave him an Abraxan for his thirteenth birthday and Lucius had declared that he couldn't keep it. Once he would have obeyed and kept silent out of sheer fear.

But this time, there was no thought of obedience in his mind, and rebellion seemed much less terrifying than it ever had.

"Have you not written the letter yet?" Lucius's voice was soft, forgiving, sympathetic, offering a way out of his troubles. "I understand that this may be hard. This was the first independent decision that you ever made, and it is natural to regret that it was a mistake." He tilted his head to the side, and his eyes were as cruel as moonlight. "Or even to have a hard time noticing that it was one."

That decided Draco. His father was pressing for a confrontation, he realized. What kind of confrontation he wanted it to be or why he wanted it to be now, Draco didn't know, but he _did _know that he was more than willing to oblige Lucius.

"It wasn't a mistake, Father," he said. "We still need a pair of eyes in the lawful world that can report on what our enemies are doing. It makes sense for me to stay in the Aurors until such time as we can settle your position with the authorities."

Lucius stiffened. The effect wouldn't have been noticeable to anyone who didn't know him as well as Draco did, but it was there. He bared his teeth, and there was nothing subtle about that. "There is no position to settle," he said. "They have condemned me to Azkaban, and they will return me there if they catch me."

And that told Draco what direction to take. He muffled a smile as he rose to his feet. He almost felt like thanking his father for all the gifts that he was handing him, which would, of course, be a foolish thing to do.

"Are you satisfied with that?" he asked, with gentleness that might well fool Lucius. "Cowering in your house for the rest of your life, terrified of what they'll do if they receive a hint that you're still alive?"

"Will you give them that hint, my son?" Lucius's hand hung loosely by his side, but that didn't mean anything. Draco had seen him grip a wand faster from that position than from any other. "Is this your announcement that you chafe under my wisdom and would like to be released to explore your own stupidity?"

"It means that I see now what you're doing," Draco answered, and shifted to the side. He had his wand. He had one pair of very expensive robes. He could easily gather up Politesse, who was sleeping on top of the desk with his scorpion tail curled over his nose, from his present position. He could do this. "Your domain gets smaller and smaller, Father. Once you controlled the Ministry. Then you lost ground because you were suspected of willingly collaborating with the Dark Lord. It took you years to make up that lost ground. Then _he _came back, and you could only do what he wished you to. Now you only have control of your house." _And not all the people within it. _"Why should I wish to imitate you, when I can have the freedom of the British wizarding world?"

Lucius was watching him with narrow eyes. "There would be some wisdom in what you say," he said, "if you had chosen some other Department in the Ministry than the _Aurors._"

"But what other Department would afford me such freedom?" Draco asked. "What other Department would make me so respected? This way, I win the trust of people who ostracized you. Perhaps, someday, enough trust to convince the Wizengamot that they should reconsider your sentencing."

Lucius shook his head. "That day will never come."

"Because of your mistakes, not mine," Draco said, lifting his head, "and I don't see why I should be required to pay for those."

Lucius stood very still then, and Draco saw he had actually shocked and hurt him for the first time. He swallowed several times before he whispered, "And so you betray your family."

"Would it be betrayal if you felt that Grandfather Abraxas did something wrong and you didn't want to pay for his mistakes?" Draco asked. "I'm trying to _help_ you, Father. I'm trying to make the family stronger. I never thought of abandoning my last name or demanding that people treat me as something other than a Malfoy. I fully intend to embrace the tradition I descend from. What I _won't _do is surrender everything I've achieved or wanted for the sake of that tradition."

Strangely, Lucius relaxed. "I know the source of this defiance," he said.

Draco watched him, and waited. On the desk, he could see that Politesse had opened one eye, but hadn't moved yet. The little scorpion-dog responded to threats based on Draco's reactions to them, and Draco still loved Lucius and was mostly calm about him.

"Your relationship with Potter," Lucius said, with a small nod of his head. "You fear losing his companionship. Well, there are things that can take care of that, including a promised betrothal to Astoria Greengrass." He raised his wand, the tip of which was glowing golden now.

Draco was immediately sure of what spell that was, though he had only read of it before instead of seeing it. The Marriage Contract Spell, it would bind the person it was cast on to someone else of the caster's choosing, and make him interested in concluding the marriage as soon as possible. It would also induce disgust towards any former lover.

Draco flung himself backwards, over the desk and down behind it. He had learned the movement in the Hand-to-Hand Combat Class under first Gregory and then Morningstar, and hadn't been sure it would work. It was meant to escape a blow, not a spell, and at much shorter distances. But he only realized his doubts when he was crouching on the carpet and the spell had sizzled over his head in a useless beam of yellow light.

He heard a tiny growl, and then Lucius cried out. Draco peered over the desk. Yes, Politesse had leaped off the desk, grabbed his father's robes in his claws, and was trying to sting with his tail. So far, Lucius's robes, enchanted to resist most minor threats, hadn't let him.

Draco was still not entirely sure of what Politesse's poison did to people, and he didn't want to find out, any more than he wanted to fight his father—or give up his career in the Aurors or his relationship with Harry. Many ways that he could move would be a betrayal of what he was, of his family if not himself. He had to find a way out. Luckily, he'd already identified one.

He boiled around the edge of the desk, grabbed Politesse, and rolled to the doorway. Another spell went over him at head height, proving the wisdom of his choice. Then he was out of the library and stumbling madly down the corridor, gasping as he heard his father's footsteps behind him.

He passed a sitting room where his mother sat with a scroll in her hands. She exclaimed when she saw him and rose to her feet. "Draco—"

"Father tried to bind me and take away my freedom," Draco said briefly, and then continued to run. Narcissa had to make her own decisions. He didn't want to force her to choose between her husband and son, which was why his plans, from the beginning, had never involved her.

He knew the house better than anyone except Lucius, and so he could skid easily down the staircases, holding onto Politesse and his wand with one hand and the banister with the other. When he reached the foot of the main staircase, he waved his wand in several precise spells that would pack some of his clothes and books into a trunk and make sure it followed him. He would have called on a house-elf, but his father could countermand those orders easily, and since he was the head of the family, the elves had to obey him.

He heard the footsteps behind him, and felt the snarl that vibrated Politesse's body in his hands, and knew that he couldn't wait any longer. Praying that the last of the spells had taken, he flung himself out the front doors and began to run madly across the front lawns. He had to get beyond the anti-Apparition wards. He had never thought he would hate their presence.

Auror classes had been better to him than he realized. He was running full-out, his head bowed to present a smaller target, his hair flapping behind him, and he wasn't even breathing hard. The iron gates grew closer and closer, and he began to allow himself to hope, instead of think, that he would make it beyond them.

Then the gates glowed and slammed shut, and the spiked fence began to grow in such a way that Draco didn't think he would get over it.

Politesse growled and leaped out of Draco's hands, racing over to the fence. He jumped, his small legs powering him a much longer way up than Draco would have thought they could have, his jaws closing on one of the top spikes of the fence.

As he soared, his tail lengthened, extending down in loops of chitin-covered rope until it landed at Draco's feet. Draco hesitated only once, looking at the stinger that dripped small, clear drops of venom onto the ground, and then began to climb. The tail wasn't _all _stinger, and he knew an escape route when he saw one.

Politesse was on the other side of the fence by now, swinging his tail back and forth with apparently no effort. Draco knew magical strength when he saw it, too. He and the tail were dragged up the fence together, and over the spikes at the top, and then he was breathing air uncontaminated by his father's control.

Despite everything, he had to stop and stare for long moments at Politesse, wondering what else he was capable of and why Draco hadn't noticed it until now. Politesse stared up at him in silence and then barked once and looked back at the house.

Draco picked him up, and concentrated carefully on the name that Harry had told him. He had said his house used to be under Fidelius, and though that was no longer the case, it was still difficult to arrive there unless you were using all the care that you could muster.

_Number Twelve Grimmauld Place, _Draco thought, and spun in place before he vanished.

The last thing he saw before he did was his father's frustrated face.

*

Harry licked his lips and stepped back. He _thought _things were going well, but since this was the first time he'd done this or anything like this, it was hard to say for certain.

The book had said that a circle used to summon a vision of the dead—the only thing Harry was going to try and do at the moment—had to be perfect. Harry thought his was. He'd drawn it with salt by hand, the way the book had said he had to, but then used magic to smooth out the inconsistencies. The book had also approved of that. The circle was to contain the visions so they couldn't emerge into the real world and haunt his nightmares. Harry highly approved of that.

The candles at the head and foot of the circle (well, head and foot relative to where he stood) were made of black beeswax. He'd had to venture into Knockturn Alley to find them, but once he showed that he knew the proper spells to determine their materials, no one had tried to cheat him. And they burned with a clear blue flame, the way the book said they were supposed to.

Harry focused on the circle and raised his hands. His wand was in his left hand, instead of his right. He had wondered about that, but the book said that someone who was left-handed would have needed to switch to the right. Necromancy required many things that were backwards from the traditional way of doing magic.

Harry wondered if he should be worried about that, and then shook his head. Hadn't he come too far to have doubts? If anything, having doubts was selfish. He would be depriving people he loved of a second chance at life if he stood around hemming and hawing and certain that he was being stupid.

He whispered the name of the one he wanted to see backwards, as the book had said he had to do. "_Kcalb Suiris."_

The candles snapped and sparked, and then an arch of delicate, glowing blue flame rose up and crossed over the circle. Two more arches grew out to the sides of the circle that didn't have any candles, though Harry didn't know why. He was too occupied in watching the sheer beauty of that arch, and the way that it stabbed down into the middle of the circle, and the vision that began to form within it.

The vision of an emaciated, haunted man with dark hair and grey eyes.

Sirius raised his hands and began to turn in a circle, the way that Harry had seen some of Hestia's illusions spin when she was demonstrating them in Auror Conduct Class. He wondered if this was supposed to happen, and then felt his throat and eyes burn and realized that he didn't care. He started to step forwards.

His foot crossed the line of salt.

At the same moment, he heard loud banging from the front door downstairs, and Draco's voice calling him.

Harry flung himself to the floor as the blue arch and the vision exploded into devouring fire, black in color. He scooped up a handful of salt and flung it at the explosion. The book had said to do that, too. Salt was a means of protection, his mind babbled, and it should work now—

It did. The vision froze and then collapsed in on itself, like a pillar of dust. The candles went out. Harry lay in the darkness, on a freezing attic floor, and breathed quietly to himself.

But Draco was still knocking and calling.

Harry heaved himself back to his feet and banished the circle of salt with a flicker of his wand. After a moment's hesitation, he banished the black candles, too. He didn't know how he could explain them if Draco saw them, and he could always buy more now that he knew where to go.

He clattered down the stairs to the front door, rolling his sleeves up and trying to sniff himself to make sure that he didn't smell too obviously of smoke and salt and Dark magic. He wondered as he went if it was worth it to hide this magic from Draco if he then felt too nervous and embarrassed to meet him, but the question became less important when he thought again of the way Sirius had looked in that brief vision. Harry might have the power to bring people back to life. How could he set that aside?

Wasn't it almost a moral imperative for him to do it?

He opened the door, opened his mouth to welcome Draco, and then paused and stared. Draco held Politesse in one arm, with his tail longer than Harry had ever seen it and swinging around so that Harry had to duck. A trunk was hovering behind Draco, and he clutched his wand. The hair on the left side of his head was singed, and soot marks blackened his face.

"What happened?" Harry whispered, motioning Draco inside. "You look like you've been burned."

Draco raised one hand and touched his head, blinking as blackened hairs dropped away from his fingers. "Did that happen?" he asked in a distracted tone. "I didn't realize. It must have happened when my father cast a curse at me." He shook his head and stepped into the house, checking over his shoulder.

Harry shut the door, still staring at him. "Your father?"

Draco paused, as if he was reconsidering telling Harry the truth, and then nodded and turned around. "My father managed to escape from Azkaban," he said, "in such a way that the Ministry doesn't know about it. And then he decided that he should be able to control my life. He wanted me to stop being an Auror, and stop seeing you."

Harry came to him and wrapped his arms around Draco, bowing his head so that his face was hidden in Draco's hair, even burned and smoke-damaged as it was. At the moment, the thought of the dead was nothing next to the thought of losing Draco. To know that Draco was still alive and divided from him because Lucius Malfoy wanted it that way was worse than knowing Sirius was dead.

"What happened?" he whispered. "Why did he think—I mean, why did you disobey him?" It had just occurred to him that it was stranger for Draco to _not _want what his father wanted than it was for him to go along with it.

Draco tensed in his arms for a minute, and Politesse growled. Harry felt the rattle of chitin against his arm as the scorpion tail swung back and forth. "Did you think I would give you up that easily?" Draco hissed into his ear, tightening his fingers cruelly on Harry's arms.

Harry forced himself to hold still and think about it from Draco's perspective, not his own. Draco was probably touchy because of his father's escape in the first place, and now he'd run away with only his trunk and his own father casting spells at him. Harry made sure that, when he spoke, it was calmly.

"Family's always been important to you," he said. "Blood purity's always been important to you. I assumed that I had an important place in your life, but I would never have wanted you to choose between me and your family. If someone else forced you to make a choice, then I wasn't sure where you'd go."

Draco clutched him for a minute longer, then broke away and put Politesse on the floor. Politesse trotted off to sniff in a corner, giving Harry a distrustful look as he went. Draco began pacing back and forth, one hand locked on the back of his neck as though he could massage the pain of his decision away.

"My father wanted me to give up being an Auror because he assumed that I should be under his dominion," Draco said. "And, I think now, because he was nervous that I would betray him somehow to the Ministry after he went through so much trouble to keep that from happening." Harry felt a deep, warm glow. Draco had told _him_ the secret without any fuss, as if he assumed that Harry would naturally keep it—or as if he naturally trusted Harry. Harry wanted to be worthy of that trust. "At first he told me that I had to give it up. I thought I could lie to him and put it off. Today, he came and asked me for the letter of resignation, and also told me that I wouldn't be allowed to see you anymore and tried to bind me to a marriage contract with Astoria Greengrass." Draco sneered and lifted his head. "I'm not sure why he thought I'd still be an obedient little boy, waiting passively for him to come in and take control of my life."

"I think Azkaban freezes time for people," Harry murmured, thinking of the way that Sirius had sometimes treated him like James. "They don't realize that the rest of the world's moved on."

Draco stopped and stared at him for so long that Harry started to feel uncomfortable. Then Draco nodded, said, "You may have something there," and started pacing again. "I hadn't thought—I didn't want to break with him. But I won't let him make me into a slave, or a servant, or a mindless Malfoy. I'm more than that."

He turned around and stared hard at Harry, eyes searching. "You said I was interested in family and blood purity. Well, yes, but I'm also interested in fighting beside you, and in friendship. You were the one who taught me that. Was I wrong?"

Harry, his heartbeat so fast that he thought he'd have to lean against the wall for support in a minute, shook his head. "So long as you _do _remember that I want to be your lover, too," he couldn't help muttering. On the one hand, Draco had left when his father wanted him to marry someone else, but on the other hand, that could have happened just because Draco was sick of being told what to do.

Draco's nostrils flared, the only sign of how nervous the statement made him. "I want to be yours, too," he said. "But I told you that I wasn't completely comfortable with it yet."

Harry nodded again. He thought he could even understand why Draco might not be comfortable with it now. Draco was very aware of how much power other people had over him, and he had fought free of his father's control when it became too overwhelming. Might he not fear what Harry, or any other lover, could do to him if he became really attached?

"And I came here," Draco finished, "because I thought it was the only place in Britain I'd be really welcome." The tilt of his head was proud, and lonely, and vulnerable.

Harry stepped up and wrapped his arms around him again. "You're welcome for as long as you care to stay," he whispered. "Did you really think that I'd make you go back to the Manor?"

Draco leaned against him and shut his eyes. "No," he murmured. "But I thought that you might not want to have someone invading your privacy."

_Shit. The ritual._

But Harry said again, "You're welcome for as long as you care to stay," because the ignoble truth, when it came down to things, was that the living were really more important to him than the dead, and Draco more important than anyone else.

_Most of the time._


	3. Swift When There Is Need

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Three—Swift When There Is Need_

Harry mumbled and put an arm over his eyes. "Go away, Kreacher," he said. Why would the house-elf be knocking on his door, anyway? He didn't take the initiative to come up to Harry's bedroom most of the time, since he could keep breakfast warm as long as Harry needed to wait.

"Harry? I need to talk to you."

_Draco!_ Harry sat straight up as the memories of yesterday came flooding back. He'd settled Draco in a bedroom down the corridor from his own, but it sounded like he was awake now.

And no wonder. Enough sunlight was coming through the windows to make Harry marvel that he'd slept through it. He shook his head and tugged on the trousers he'd worn yesterday, then hesitated and pulled on the shirt, too. He didn't know if Draco was ready to see him half-naked yet.

He padded over to the door, yawning so widely he paused before he opened it so he wouldn't seem rude.

And then he saw Draco's pale face and the way he swayed on his feet, and more or less forgot about not being rude.

"What the fuck happened?" he asked quietly, pulling him inside and glancing over his shoulder. It was useless to tell himself that Kreacher and the wards of Grimmauld Place wouldn't let anyone come inside, and that Politesse would also defend Draco. He still worried over Draco's safety. "Nightmare?"

"No." Draco sat down on Harry's bed and took a deep breath, and Harry repressed the irrelevant thought that it wasn't the emotion he would have wanted to see Draco display the first time he was in Harry's bed. "I got this this morning." He held out the scroll of parchment Harry hadn't realized he was holding, and Harry picked it up and got it to unfold after a brief battle.

_Dear Mr. Malfoy:_

_We here at Gringotts regret to inform you that your mother, Narcissa Malfoy, has taken control of the Malfoy vaults and has given us orders that you are not to receive any Galleons from them. We shall hope to be able to enjoy your business and to see the mending of this family quarrel soon._

_Cordially,_

_Griphook._

Harry had barely looked up from the scroll when Draco was talking feverishly, rolling his fingers through his hair as if he was trying to scrub it dry after a shower. "This order came from my father, I _know _it did, but he used my mother's name because he couldn't let them know he was free. He wants to take away my independence and make me obey him since I won't do it of my own free will. He wants to get rid of any chance I have to live on my own." He looked up, and Harry felt his heart melt at the sight of the hollows in Draco's eyes. "What am I going to _do_?"

Harry looked at the scroll again, and then put it down on the bed. He didn't think it was going to help. "Live with me, of course," he said quietly.

"Yes, yes, I know," Draco said. "I mean, what am I going to do for money?" He ran his fingers through his hair again.

"Live with me," Harry repeated as calmly as he could when Draco was acting like that. "Share my vaults."

Draco froze, staring at his knees for so long that Harry wondered if he had said something wrong. When Draco looked up, he was shaking his head slightly, and he squinted as if he were looking at a torch after being in the darkness a long time.

"Accept charity?" he said. "I couldn't do that."

"Why not?" Harry sat down on the chair that stood not far from the bed, where he sometimes balanced his breakfast tray, and looked hard at Draco. "Listen, I have two sets of vaults, one from the Potters and one from the Blacks. My godfather left me the Black inheritance. I don't know why, but for some reason he thought no one from his own family could be trusted with it." That made Draco smile faintly. Harry smiled back and went on. "But that money is really, partially, yours. I haven't touched it much because it embarrassed me, to have this big property I hadn't done anything to earn. If you use some of that money, it won't be like living on charity, will it?"

Draco stared at his knees for a while longer, then said, "The Malfoys have always been proud."

Harry waited, because that didn't sound like a refusal.

"I don't know if I could do this," Draco whispered. "I don't know if I could do this without losing my pride, and then what will I have to sustain myself during these long months of struggle with my father, who is going to have all the pride of being offended behind him?"

Harry sighed. "Sometimes, Draco, you're an arse without meaning to be," he said. "You'll have me, of course. And not just for money or to have someone to live with .I would _hope _that knowing I love you gives you some pride of your own."

Draco froze, then lifted his eyes to Harry's face. "You've said you love me twice now," he whispered.

"Yes," Harry said. "Do you need it repeated more often to satisfy you? Because I'll say it as often as you like."

Draco swallowed and then massaged his throat as if he'd been gulping down a bitter potion. "I haven't said it to you yet."

"No," Harry said, "but I'll wait. I don't want you to say it only because I did. But I have to admit, I wouldn't have stood around saying it if I thought that you _weren't _in love with me. I'm done with trying to make hopeless relationships work." He grimaced as he thought of the way he had floundered through the last few weeks with Ginny, trying to ignore the gaps in their trust for one another.

Draco sat staring at him for so long that Harry wondered if he'd said something wrong, again. Or maybe Draco thought that "hopeless" was meant to refer to what Harry really thought of _their _relationship.

Finally, Draco said, "That's more fair than most other people would have been."

"I know," Harry said, "but it's not about being fair, for me. I mean, not all the time." He bit his tongue, trying to think of what he could say that would sound right. He wasn't skilled at this. He had been able to give compliments to Ginny, and talk to her about her dreams of getting out of the Burrow and having her own private life, but that was very different from knowing what to say in every situation.

"It's like this," he said at last. "I want to say I love you because I want to say it. I want to share the Black vaults with you because I want to share them, and because I don't think you would consent to share anything out of the Potter vaults." A quick smile darting across Draco's face told him that suspicion was correct. "I want you to live with me because I want it. And of course I hope that you want all those things too," he added quickly.

"You're amazing," Draco said, with a soft reverence in his voice that made Harry blush. But then Draco reached out and cupped his hands around Harry's jaw and drew his face forwards, and Harry forgot about what he might have looked like or if that was important in the bliss of the kiss that followed.

It was soft, and hot, and their mouths seemed to melt together, so that Harry was almost dazed when Draco pulled back. Draco smiled at him and touched his cheek, then his forehead, then the ridge above his eye.

"All right," he said. "Then let's go to Gringotts as soon as we can and get things arranged so that I can share the Black vaults. I still feel a little like I'm living on charity, but I would rather live on your charity than anyone else's."

Harry smiled and let his forehead rest against Draco's, closing his eyes.

*

"And you're quite sure that you want to do this, Mr. Potter?" The goblin who had introduced himself as Griphook kept looking back and forth between Harry and Draco as if he assumed that there was a mistake somewhere.

Harry braced his hands on the desk behind which Griphook stood and leaned forwards. Draco admired the firm look of his face, as if he intended to butt through all the obstacles between him and his goal with his jaw alone. "Yes, I do," he said. "And my reasons for doing so are none of your business. You've told me often that you aren't here to give clients advice unless they seem to be throwing their money away."

Griphook examined Harry this time with the same doubtful expression he had given to Draco so far, then nodded and reached down beneath the desk to retrieve a key. "The necessary changes will be made, then," he said in the tone that someone might use to announce the end of the world.

"Thank you," Harry said, and stepped back from the desk. The other goblins nearby, at least the ones who hadn't been busy with clients, looked hastily back at their paperwork and tried to pretend that they hadn't been listening. Draco wasn't sure Harry even noticed them. He was striding across the floor of the main room in Gringotts, heading for the door as though he was glad to be out of here.

Draco followed, thoughtful. He couldn't help breathing in the atmosphere of wealth and power whenever he came to Gringotts and wondering what the other people he saw here thought of him. Harry didn't look to right or left. He acted as though no one could possibly think anything important about him, and if they did, then they would let him know about it one way or another.

_That's the difference between us, _Draco thought. _I look at the way I exercise my power. I think about it, because the exercise of power changes the relationships of the people around me and my relationships with the world. Harry just does it as if he could do it in isolation._

_But that's not possible, even if you're not the Savior of the Wizarding World._

Draco had been wondering what he could do to help Harry in return for Harry's letting Draco live with him and giving him access to the Black vaults. Harry would probably say that he didn't _need _to do anything, except be there, but Draco didn't think like that. The nagging sensation of a debt unfulfilled would remain in his mind until he gave Harry a gift of equal value.

_Perhaps this is it. Perhaps I can teach him about the exercise of power that he should have learned if Dumbledore had any sense at all, and how to handle himself in politics. He doesn't like thinking about his fame or using it, but he did all right when he spoke with Kepler's sister a few months ago. And I think he likes obliging _me _more than he dislikes doing anything with his name._

Draco smiled. Good. That would help. He would teach Harry a few essential truths of the world, and at the same time make him more independent by arming him against the people who were trying to exploit him. He saw no way that that could go wrong, at least as long as he explained his motives openly. Trying to trick Harry was the way to get him to distrust people.

"Oh, Harry! I haven't seen you in such a long time."

Draco looked sharply ahead, and found a reason to fault himself. While he'd been drifting around in his mind, making plans for the future, he hadn't been paying attention to the present. Harry had been swept up in a Weasley tide.

Well, all right, so it consisted of two Weasley women. But considering what he had to fear and resent from them, Draco felt justified in calling them a tide.

The younger one, Mrs. Weasel the second, hurtled forwards and hugged Harry, her red hair swirling around them like a curtain that she intended to draw to give them privacy. The other one stood there with her hands on her hips, glancing between Harry and Draco with half a smile and half a frown, as if she didn't know whether the pleasure of seeing Harry out of the house should get rid of her disinclination to see Draco.

_As if I really wanted to see you either, _Draco thought, and gave her a viciously perfect sneer as he walked over to retrieve Harry from his former girlfriend.

"I can't believe you never got my letters," She-Weasel said, standing back from Harry and shaking his shoulders as if he was a child. Harry looked embarrassed. _Of course he does, _Draco thought. _I wonder if she even thinks about how much attention people pay to him already, or if she's realized the way she's adding to it? _"I sent them so carefully! Why didn't you reply?"

Harry opened his mouth. Draco knew what he was going to say from the expression on his face. It was going to be a polite lie, a suggestion that she send them again or that she hadn't sent them with post-owls clever enough to find him or that the Ministry wards had kept them out.

It was going to be something that would encourage the She-Weasel to keep on sending them, because Harry seemed unable to bear the idea of a permanent break from her.

Draco didn't know why. Harry could keep being friends with Weasley and Granger even if he annoyed the youngest Weasley. In fact, Draco was so sure of that theory that he decided to test it himself.

"He burned most of them," he drawled, coming to a halt at Harry's side. "The ones that he simply wasn't too busy to answer what with, you know, _surviving _the attacks on the Ministry and the uncertainty over Nihil." He wouldn't go into more specifics than that unless Harry wanted him to. He doubted that Harry had ever told her about being targeted by Nihil, or that she needed to know that if she didn't already know.

She-Weasel spent a moment staring at him as if the sheer force of her gaze was enough to make him curl up and die. Draco stared boredly back, lifting his chin a little so that he could keep up his pride. He might have been cast out of his house and his money by his father, but he still had more to be proud of than she did.

Harry's hand clenched down on his arm, and he hissed into Draco's ear, "What are you doing?"

"Justice," Draco said, and didn't look away from She-Weasel. He identified two of the emotions curling and coiling in his gut right now. One was annoyance. They had almost got quietly out of the bank, which he knew Harry would have preferred, and now there was this bint to deal with.

The other was jealousy. The moment She-Weasel had touched Harry, Draco had to deal with the _fact _of her doing it. Before, it had just been an image or a memory, and that had been enough to make him angry.

Now…

_He's mine, _Draco thought, staring at She-Weasel and wishing he could somehow send the thoughts into her head without the messiness and inconvenience of establishing a telepathic bond. _I'm the one who gave up my home and my money and my father's favor for him. I'm the one who was branded as disloyal to my family because I love him. Mine, bitch. Get it?_

She-Weasel at least seemed to feel the challenge in Draco's stare, though she wasn't sensible enough to back away. She lifted her head instead and tried to see the ground around her long, pointed nose. "Surely Harry would have told me if he didn't want me to write," she said. "You're being _rude._" Smug, and sure that was the greatest crime possible.

"Would he have?" Draco asked. "He's barely told you that he was hurt by the way you dropped him—"

"_Draco!"_ Harry hissed.

Draco continued, because whatever Harry was going to say to him, he had a very strong feeling that it would be said in private. "And he avoided you at Christmas, I know, but you don't seem to have taken the hint. I don't think you ever will, unless someone tells you straight out. So I will. You gave him up for stupid reasons, and then you want him to act as if they were rational ones. Someone with an ounce of sense—no, a _featherweight_—would have realized that she couldn't expect friendship and approbation after that. But you go on rooting and snouting after it, grunting when you don't get it. I don't know, perhaps you do realize what a treasure you gave up and you want it back, but of course it's back on your own terms. Of course you aren't ready to actually _apologize _for the hurt that you inflicted, oh, no. You'll jump around his life like some dog begging to be let on a bed until he feels bad for you and takes you up out of misplaced guilt."

At that moment, the Weasley matriarch shoved herself in front of him and scowled down into his face. Draco looked at her without moving. He didn't find her impressive. The woman had too obviously let herself go with seven children. There were spells that could have kept her in shape after that, just as there were spells that could have helped with those freckles and that offensively red hair. But if she couldn't be arsed to worry about the one, of course she wouldn't tend to the other.

"You are the _rudest _young man," she said, and presumably she was going to go on to tell him what, in her limited experience, constituted rudeness. But Draco interrupted, because he knew she wasn't going to say anything about her own manners, and therefore she had nothing to say that he wanted to hear.

"Of course you would say that, because you want your daughter and Harry to get married someday." That was a guess in the dark, but a good one, because suddenly her face was mottled even redder than before. Draco hadn't thought that could happen, and he would have recoiled, except that Harry's grip on his arm kept getting fiercer and fiercer, and he didn't think he could move. "And you don't even care that she was the one to get rid of _him_, instead of the other way around," Draco went on. "That's because you can't imagine that he's gone forever, can you? You think that she can say whatever she likes and then crook her little finger, and he'll come running. And I'm sure the fame and money he comes from aren't disadvantages for you, either. If you—"

"Draco, that is _enough_."

Harry was leaning towards him now, and Draco could feel the breath on his ear, as sharp as the bite of actual teeth. He shut up, and contented himself with scowling at the two Weasley bints, who looked as shocked and offended as though someone had dyed their hair blonde for them. Draco sniffed. _That person would be performing a public service, and so am I._

"I can't believe that you were so rude," Harry told him in a low, hard tone that, nevertheless, the two Weasleys could hear. "I told you once that I wouldn't tolerate you being rude to my friends, just as I wouldn't tolerate them insulting you. They didn't once make a _move _towards you."

"No," Draco said, and he lifted his voice, because he had done what he had done for perfectly good and understandable motives, and why should he care if someone overheard? Then a glare from Harry reminded him that he wanted to be considerate for Harry's sake, and he spoke more softly again. "But they did towards you."

There was more glaring, but Harry had held still to consider his words, and Draco was glad. To make it even better, She-Weasel started to speak again just then.

"You have no right to say that," she said. "I've never been rude to Harry. I've never hurt him the way you have."

"The way I have," Draco said. "Of course. I was the one who told him he wasn't good enough for me, and that it was all about my own concerns and cares and scars after the war. I was the one who interfered in his row with my brother and expected that he would change his behavior just because I told him to. I was the one who sent him endless letters even after I saw that he didn't have any interest in responding. I can see that my crimes are certainly of the sort that would require me to apologize."

She-Weasel turned red again. Mother Weasel tried to intervene. "My daughter and Harry have always been on good terms," she said. "I'm sure that what you're saying couldn't have happened."

"It did," Draco said. "And the only reason that Harry hasn't told her to go smear blood on herself and march into the Forbidden Forest when the thestrals are in mating season is because he's too nice about it, and he doesn't want to hurt his other friends. He has to realize that they'll still like him, still care about him, even if he never cares about this bint again." He tossed his head at She-Weasel, who was trying to speak around her own gaping mouth, and not managing.

God knew what would have happened then—and Draco was rather interested in finding out—but Harry clamped down as though his hand was a gate keeping Draco from getting in trouble, and dragged him away. Draco managed a final exchange of venomous glares with She-Weasel, and then a pillar was between them, and then the doors of Gringotts.

A moment later, Harry was Apparating. Draco half-closed his eyes, and felt the wards of Grimmauld Place close in on them as they landed.

Harry shoved him inside and held him there, against the door. Draco smiled as he felt his blood heat up.

_Oh, my. This could have possibilities._

*

"Why the fuck would you do that?" Harry had intended to yell at Draco as soon as he got him home, but he found himself unable to lift his voice. His words just came out grating and deep, instead, like iron that someone was dragging on a stone floor. "She was just hugging me."

"And she keeps writing letters to you, and she hurt you in the past," Draco answered, his gaze radiant and his smile clear. Harry stared at him, wondering if he should be disgusted, though he couldn't quite bring himself to be. "And she grabbed you this time in a way that was _not _friendly, but as if she was still your girlfriend. I was jealous. You're mine. And if I hurt her preemptively this time, there was at least the _hope _that she would get distracted and forget to inflict whatever wound on you she was going to."

Harry shook his head. "She did _nothing _to you."

Draco's face darkened at once. "And did Nihil do nothing to me when he hurt you?" he demanded. "Did you do nothing to me when you nearly killed yourself? _Multiple _times? You are mine." His hands lifted and closed on Harry's shoulders as if he were the one with the right to be angry. "I want to protect you, as much as you want to protect me."

Harry made a frustrated sound and dropped his grip on Draco. "I give up. Go away. I don't want to look at you for a while." He started to turn away.

Draco hauled him back towards him and bit his lips. Harry started to fight him off, but Draco stuck out his tongue, licked Harry's lips and then his chin in a long downwards stroke, and whispered, "Do you know how badly I want to suck you off right now? And I'm going to."

Then he was on the floor, and Harry's trousers were half-shredded, and Draco's mouth was open, and everything was happening _much_ too fast for Harry's brain and libido, which were still locked in conflict.

_He's feeling pressured into doing this, and we'll both regret it in the afternoon, _said Harry's brain.

_Oh, yes, please, _purred the desire located somewhere south of his midsection.

But, faced with Draco's challenging eyes, neither response would emerge from Harry's mouth. The moment had to depend on Draco.


	4. Defensive and Offensive

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Four—Defensive and Offensive_

Draco could have smiled at the pure, delicious torment in Harry's eyes, but he didn't think he wanted to encourage him to have doubts. He wiped his palms on his trousers and then lifted his hands, feathering his fingers delicately along Harry's cock.

Maybe he should have been afraid. He certainly would have said that he was, if someone had asked him if he wanted to do this ahead of time. But now that he was here, with the warm smell drifting up from Harry's skin and the head of Harry's penis trembling an inch from his lips, the sensation crowded out the fear.

"I want this, I promise," he said, but deliberately kept his voice low, so that Harry felt the warm breath more than the impact of the words.

Harry shuddered and gave in with a thrust of his hips towards Draco, the way Draco had hoped he would. Draco chuckled—though soundlessly—and leaned forwards, holding his teeth carefully behind his lips. He'd been bitten before by a careless partner, and it wasn't an experience he was anxious to pass on to anyone else.

His tongue had to be careful, too, he realized the moment Harry was in his mouth. It was easy to lick in the wrong direction, or at least a direction that felt wrong, and easy to fill his mouth too much. He choked a few times, then reoriented himself and stroked his tongue up and down. He rolled his eyes up towards Harry's face, wondering if he was doing all right.

He quickly realized he needn't have worried. Harry had his eyes tightly shut, and the crinkled lines around his mouth could have fooled someone into thinking he was in pain, but Draco saw the rhythmic way his hands opened and closed, and heard the hitch of a whine in his breaths, and felt the way his hips writhed in tiny circles, longing to thrust more deeply but not allowing himself to.

Draco smiled. He would have liked nothing more than to force Harry to lose control. But he wasn't sure he was ready for that. Nothing less sexy than someone coughing and gagging during a blowjob.

He began to swirl his tongue instead, up and around Harry's cock in a pattern as close to a spiral as he could come, while reaching back to pinch the skin around Harry's arse. Harry squeaked and opened his eyes to stare down at Draco. Draco looked up at him with an expression that he didn't think he could have defined, but it made Harry buck. That was enough for Draco.

"Come on," Draco mouthed, and sucked deeply on Harry.

_That _was certainly effective. Harry gave a shocked cry, as though he'd been the victim of a lightning bolt, and came.

Draco shuddered and drove his fists into the floor to stop his impulse to back away. It _really _didn't taste very good. But this was another time when he was grateful that he'd been born a wizard and not a Muggle, because he only had to reach for his wand and tap the corners of his mouth to Vanish the excess that trickled past his lips. He couldn't bring himself to swallow most of it, so that was a lot.

Harry slid down the wall promptly, his legs quivering as though he'd spent hours exercising. Draco drew back before he was crushed and rocked onto his heels. Despite the disgusting taste in his mouth and the truly distressing ache between his legs, he felt more triumphant than he had since his application to the Auror program was accepted.

"Well," he purred. "And how did you like the first _real _sexual experience of your life?"

Harry forced one eye open and glared at him. "'m not a virgin, you know," he mumbled.

"But you've never had sex with me," Draco pointed out peacefully. "That makes you a virgin to my powerful mouth."

Harry began to laugh. Draco leaned against him and grinned at him. He couldn't be offended by the laughter. It had a very pleasant _affected _sound. Harry wasn't immune to him, and that was what Draco had really wanted to know.

Harry stopped laughing with an abruptness that worried Draco for a minute, but then he leaned forwards and stared into his eyes, and Draco realized that he had simply exchanged one emotion for another. Amusement had turned into desire, and Draco fought, hard, the impulse to preen as he reached out one hand. Harry's was already moving to grip his.

"I want you," Harry said against his ear, "upstairs in bed. Now."

Draco smirked and stood, allowing his gaze to linger on Harry's sweaty and smeared cock for a minute. _I did that. _He resolved to allow that thought to strengthen him if he worried about how he would react to something so intimate as Harry sucking him off.

"Your room or mine?" he asked.

*

_I can't believe I'm actually going to do this. _

So many thoughts were trying to crowd into Harry's mind as he watched Draco lay himself across the middle of Harry's bed, spreading his legs and arching his hips as if he wanted to draw more attention than he'd had so far. Harry could have told him that was impossible. He already couldn't look anywhere but Draco, couldn't look at anything but the way Draco's long fingers curled and flexed against the material of his dark blue trousers as he drew them down, or the way Draco glanced up at him from one pale eye and then looked down mock-demurely.

But his thoughts _did _center on other things, and Harry could hear their murmur out of the corner of his mental ear.

_I thought he was afraid. _

_What if I do something wrong? _

_I've had sex before, but never with a man. I might hurt him. I might do something that means he'll never want to have sex with me _again, _even if he did the first time._

_Is he only doing this because he was jealous of Ginny? That's not a good motive. I should talk to him about that._

But Draco turned his head and stared at him fully instead of from the side, and Harry felt his reluctance melt out of him at the full impact of those drowning grey eyes. That gaze, at least, told him that Draco was as uncertain as he was, and Harry couldn't resist climbing onto the bed, crouching above him, and lowering his head to kiss him.

Draco adapted to the kiss eagerly, opening his mouth and sticking his tongue out so that it twined in the air between his mouth and Harry's. Harry laughed and slid closer, letting the familiar feel of the warm skin on the back of Draco's neck and his cheeks soothe his fears. Maybe this first time wouldn't be exceptionally brilliant—although his bones still hummed with the exceptional pleasure Draco had given him—but they would have the chance for a million more times. That at least released a lot of his anxiety.

"Come on now," Draco whispered at last, as much as he could around their joined tongues, lifting his hips and rubbing his cock back and forth against Harry's leg. Harry groaned, and Draco smiled. "I think you have something else to do."

Harry kissed him one more time and then slid down his body. Draco's cock looked tempting, there was no doubt about that, rosy and shiny and trembling and covered with white liquid. Harry licked his lips and looked up into Draco's face one more time, rejoicing in the way that Draco opened his mouth and just _kept _it open as Harry sank onto his cock.

Harry knew he'd had to close his eyes when Draco sucked him off, and now he was fighting not to close them again. The sheer _fullness _of his mouth was getting to him in a strange way, and his tongue didn't seem to have enough room to move, and there was no such thing as bringing enough pleasure to Draco.

By contrast, Draco kept his eyes open, staring straight down at Harry, his breath so fast that Harry feared he would pass out some of the time. Once, he lifted his fist to his mouth and started to gnaw on it, but he immediately dropped it again, as if horrified that he'd begun. He shook his head, and then his face flushed and he began breathing slowly in and out, building up to pants. His expression was dazed, fluctuating between pleasure and something deeper, something Harry thought he could have worked out.

But he was a little _occupied _at the moment, and enjoying himself far more than he would have thought he could.

It was—it was wonderful to find that he could make Draco whimper with a sideways lick, or make him stiffen and arch and fight to keep from crying out if his cock bumped into Harry's gums. He liked the taste that flooded his mouth, because it was the taste of giving, to him. He was giving Draco this gift, and Draco liked it, and expressed a lot more than he usually did when Harry tried to give him something.

_Let's see him try to be cool and composed now, _Harry thought, smug, and his tongue lashed again, and Draco yelped and came into his mouth without so much as a warning.

Harry choked and garbled the words he tried to say to Draco in retaliation, but he did swallow most of the sudden tide. He wiped his lips afterwards, and looked up at Draco, who stared back at him, smug and remorseful and so sated that it seemed as if he could have flopped onto the pillow and gone to sleep right there.

That sight stole away Harry's irritation. "I take it you liked that," he said, and crawled up the bed to lie on the pillow beside Draco, kissing his chest on the way—which was still covered by a shirt, Harry realized. Then again, he had only been half-naked when Draco sucked him off, too. Maybe Draco had decided that their experiences should be exactly parallel.

"Yes," Draco said, and rolled over to look at him. "And I want to know who else you experimented on. The Weaselette could never have taught you to suck off a man like that."

Harry rolled his eyes. "Trust you to try and ruin the mood," he said. "No one, as you well know. You're my only lover besides her. Why don't _you_ tell me who _you_ practiced on?"

"Because I have more discretion," Draco said, "but you don't, as you've just proved." He yawned widely and then rolled over, his arm curving around Harry's back so that he held him in place. "Right now, we're going to sleep, and then we're going to wake up and do this again."

Harry shivered absently. He felt cold, naked as he was, and some of the thoughts he'd had before were crowding into his head with more insistence now that he'd done the most important thing and given Draco his satisfaction. "What you said to Ginny—"

"Later," Draco said. He yawned again and rubbed his nose against Harry's shoulder in a gesture that made Harry catch his breath with how _adorable _it was. He'd never seen Draco do anything that unselfconscious before. "Later, you can give me all the scolding that my actions seem to warrant."

"But if we do this again," Harry said, still trying to defend himself and be stern, "then I'll be thinking about that instead of scolding you."

Draco opened one eye and gave him a sweet, dazed, smug look. "Yes," he said. "It's all part of my secret plan." He curled up more tightly, and then was asleep, his chest rising and falling in such a way that Harry doubted he was faking.

And there would be consequences to deal with later, Harry _knew _there would be, and he should still be partially angry, instead of grateful that Draco had got over his fear enough for this, and he should be righteous and noble and think of what was due to Ginny, instead of pleased that he had Draco for a lover at last…

But _should _and _later _had nothing on the pressure of soft breath against his neck and the exhaustion washing his bones. His arm fell over Draco's shoulder, and his eyes shut.

*

Draco woke up, stretched, and reached out lazily. His hands slid across cold sheets—so cold that Harry must have been gone for an hour at least.

Draco lay still for some time, trying to decide how he felt about that. Then he sat up and shook his head. Harry had a good reason for getting up. Draco was certain of that, because Harry had to know what he would face from Draco if he _didn't _have a good reason.

_And I think he's still in the house, or he would have left me a note that he intended to depart, _Draco thought, glancing around the room and satisfying himself that he hadn't overlooked a scrap of parchment. _Or left a message with his house-elf. _Draco, who knew that Malfoy house-elves sometimes neglected guests, had made sure that he was on good terms with Kreacher the day he arrived, and had been greeted with the elf's raptures to be serving someone who came from the Black family.

Draco pulled on his pants and trousers and used the small, dusty mirror that hung on the wall of Harry's bedroom to make sure that his hair was a ravishing mess instead of a tangled mess. Then he smirked at his reflection and closed one eye in a slow wink.

He had been worried about the control he would give up to any lover who could enchant him as thoroughly as Harry could. He'd had sex before, plenty of times, but mostly with people who were curious about him or whom he lusted after, and none of them had been able to make him shake the way Harry could with one careless glance. It was why Draco so far couldn't say that he loved Harry. So many things were going to change when he did.

But this, though Draco had no doubt it would make things change, had been nothing but pleasurable so far. And right now, he was anxious to find Harry so that they could continue making it so.

When he opened the bedroom door, he immediately understood why Harry had left. The voices of a whiny Weasel and Granger drifted up from a lower floor. Draco leaned against the banister and listened until he was sure he knew what they had come about and the kind of replies that Harry was making.

Then he lifted his head and paraded down the stairs.

Some changes he was afraid of. Some changes he was wary of. Some changes he was concerned about, because of the impact they would have on Harry rather than because of how they would affect himself.

And some changes he was going to face and court, because he was damned if they were going to keep him and Harry apart.

*

"How could you let him say those things to her, mate?"

Harry wanted to put his head in his hands and scream. Ron usually wasn't good in an argument because he jumped around from subject to subject and was easily distracted. But this time, he must have decided on the question he really wanted to know the answer to beforehand, and he just kept asking it no matter how many times Harry tried to explain the truth to him.

"I didn't know he was going to talk to her that way," Harry tried now, lifting his head and staring at both of them. Ron just scowled, but Hermione's eyes were fixed on Harry's face in a thoughtful way that he didn't like. He remembered that she'd known the moment he got back together with Ginny, the morning after they'd slept together, and the day they'd broken up, too. "Honestly."

"But why did you let him say those things?" Ron repeated. He rocked back and forth on his heels and crossed his arms, shaking his head. "You could have stopped him so easily once he started. With a Silencing Charm, if nothing else."

Harry winced. _Yes, I could have. Why didn't I think of that? _

But the answer didn't make him feel any better. Part of him had been pleased to watch Draco yell at Ginny. He had been so exasperated that she simply wouldn't leave him _alone_, and this meant she probably wouldn't come near him again, or at least not send another letter. Harry was willing to let her think that he was a horrible person if he got some peace out of the bargain.

Of course, it wouldn't look that way to the Weasleys, since Harry hadn't told even Ron about most of the letters he was getting. They would just think that he was a horrible person, full stop, and, more than that, someone who had abandoned his old friends and family for his new lover.

Harry took a deep breath. He had to deal with everything that had come out of this. It was confusing and draining and irritating, but he was willing to do that. Everyone involved was important to him, except possibly Ginny.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I am. I don't think I should have put up so little protest."

Ron nodded in satisfaction, but Hermione was still considering him with a thoughtful squint Harry knew meant trouble. "There's more than that, isn't there?" she asked. "You're sorry, _but._"

Harry nodded. "Yeah. Ginny's been sending me letters all the time. Scolding letters, letters that told me she just wanted to be friends, letters that ignore everything that happened between us and try to recast it so that I was the one who chose to leave her instead of the other way around. I'm not going to tolerate that. I never answered any of her letters, but she was persistent anyway. And she was about to start scolding me again in Gringotts yesterday."

"She's just concerned about you, mate," Ron said, as Harry had known he would.

Harry glanced at him and raised his eyebrows. "Part of that was because you complained to her and got her involved in what should have been a private row between you and me."

Ron flushed. Hermione said, "Do you want me to tell her to stop? Maybe that would get her attention in the way that you couldn't, but not offend her the way Malfoy did."

Harry smiled at her. "Thanks, but I think that would drag someone else into it again. I would have kept Draco out, too," he added, as Ron opened his mouth, "but that's not an option anymore. What I want her to know is that I don't owe her anything, and her advice is nosy and unwelcome."

"But she _is_ your friend," Ron muttered rebelliously, though Harry didn't think he was serious about it. Hermione listening to his side of the story had made Ron much more disposed to do so.

"Perhaps she thinks of me that way," Harry said. "I don't think of her that way. She hurt me badly when we broke up—well, with the reason we broke up. I don't want to listen to her or be with her anymore. I won't hurt her. I won't send her Howlers. But if she shows up and tries to badger me again, then I'll yell at her. And I give Draco permission to yell at her, too," he added defiantly.

Ron ran a hand through his hair. "I just can't believe that Malfoy gets privileges that Ginny doesn't," he muttered.

"Ginny gave up those privileges," Harry said. "I'm sorry, like I said. But I'm not going to sacrifice my life and my freedom just to please her."

"That's a bit melodramatic, Harry," Hermione said, right on cue. "Of course she isn't asking for those things."

"Isn't she?" Harry turned and glared at her. "If you'd seen some of the letters she sent me, you might change your mind."

Hermione blinked. "What _was _in those letters?"

"What I already told you," Harry said. "Too much 'good' advice. An attempt to retain control over my life after I had already told her that I didn't want anything to do with her. I won't let you read one," he added, because he could see the intention to ask gathering in Hermione's eyes, "because that would be letting you interfere in the situation, too. I really think this should be private. Like I said, Draco is already involved, so it'll stay that way, but I wouldn't have let him yell like that if I'd known he was going to."

"He yelled at my mother, too," Ron said. "And what had _she_ done?"

Harry sighed in relief. It appeared they were leaving the volatile subject of Ginny behind, and that was all to the good, as far as he was concerned. "That's the part I'm most sorry for," he said. "I think that was just the Malfoy-Weasley background feud shining through, and I'm not sure how to overcome it."

"Who says it has to be overcome?" Draco's voice drawled from behind him.

Harry hid a groan with a lot of effort, and turned around. The groan came out of him anyway when he saw that Draco was naked from the waist up, but he was afraid it sounded more like a moan. Draco met his eyes and smirked, moving his head to the side slightly so that his disordered hair slid down his cheek and made him look far more tempting than he had any right to look. Harry's hands itched.

But he didn't get to think much about it, because then the row began.

*

Draco would treasure forever the looks on Weasley's and Granger's faces when he sauntered into Harry's drawing room, only too obviously having just risen from Harry's bed. Granger's mouth fell open in confusion as if she'd never heard of sex. Weasley sucked in his breath as he turned red, but he couldn't even bellow, he was so outraged.

But they paled next to the look that Harry was giving him.

_This is why I have the courage to confront his friends so soon and let them know our little state of affairs, _Draco thought, stepping up so that he could rest his hand on Harry's shoulder. _Because he loves me, and I know that he would never let them hurt me, even if he agrees with them about my behavior sometimes. _

_Father was wrong. No pure-blood marriage I could make, no marriage on behalf of the family, would ever give me this kind of strength._

"I insulted them both because I felt they deserved to be insulted," he told Granger and Weasley. "You should have seen the way your sister was hanging on him, Weasley." He snarled now as he thought about it. He could only hope that the She-Weasel would refrain in the future, or he would find it difficult to control himself. "And I think I have a right to be jealous of that if anyone does." He stepped closer to Harry still, leaning his shoulder into his, dipping his head so that he was sniffing the scent from the back of Harry's neck, and never took his eyes from Weasley's face.

Weasley stepped towards them. "I'll see you dead before I see you with Harry."

_There, _Draco thought contentedly. _Now there's no way Harry can be upset when I answer back._


	5. Angry and Silent

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Five—Angry and Silent_

Harry watched in sick fascination as Ron's face turned redder and redder, as he spoke those words about seeing Draco dead before he saw him with Harry. From the corner of his mouth, he saw Draco smirk and open his mouth to respond.

And a new thought slammed into his head. _I stood there and simply watched as Draco insulted Ginny. Am I going to allow this to happen again?_

He had his wand in his waistband, as he did so often lately. He drew it and cast a spell that Dearborn had showed them in the first week of Offensive and Defensive, a short, sharp lightning bolt that flew from ceiling to floor and detonated sparks and colored lights along the way.

That stopped Draco's retort and made Ron's mouth hang open. Hermione let out a sharp cry and took a step back. Harry was almost glad of that, because it gave him something to say at once before he had to intervene between Ron and Draco.

"I'm sorry I frightened you, Hermione," he said, smiling at her and coming a few steps nearer. "Are you all right?"

"Yes," Hermione said. She had already seen that there was no scorched place on the floor or ceiling, he thought, and Hermione's logic reasserted itself fast in the face of evidence. She blinked and looked at him closely. "What was that for?"

"Because there are some utterly ridiculous arguments going on here," Harry said sharply, "and I'm tried of being silent in them." He turned and scowled at Ron. "He's my boyfriend, freely chosen. I'm in love with him. Why would you say that you're going to kill him?"

Ron stared at him, and then found his feet. "I didn't say I'd kill him!" he snapped. "I said that I'd see him dead before I'd see him with you."

Harry folded his arms and leaned against the wall of the room. He stiffened in some irritation when he felt Draco lean against his back; he could guess what the expression on Draco's face was. But Ron had said the more offensive thing—even though Draco had instigated him to say it—and Harry had to deal with that first. Besides, Draco's turn would come.

"How were you planning to see him dead if you weren't going to kill him?" he asked, as patiently as he could.

Ron looked at him, moving one foot slowly back and forth over the floor, and then looked sullenly down at his foot, as though it was more interesting than Harry.

"How?" Harry repeated.

"Look," Ron said, and now he was talking rapidly and scowling so hard that Harry thought he might burn his shoe to pieces with his gaze, "I didn't mean that. Well, I didn't _really _mean it. It was just a saying. I just don't want him with you." He looked up, and his face was full of sadness and hopeless yearning. "You're not really going to be with him, are you, Harry?"

"I don't see what business it is of yours if I am," said Harry, "since I'm not cheating on Ginny with him. You didn't ask my permission before you and Hermione got together." _He had to be reassured that we didn't want each other, _Harry's conscience suggested in the next moment.

_But that's not the same thing, _Harry snapped back, and his conscience meekly shut up.

"But we care about you," Ron said, with a glance for support at Hermione. Hermione looked in the other direction, and Ron's voice was desperate when he turned back to Harry. "We really _do_. And I can't think that Malfoy is going to be good for you. Sure, you have compatible magic, but what basis is that for a relationship, really? There's no way that you can just stay with him for that."

Harry stared at Ron. He had expected more of a reaction to his declaration that he was in love with Draco than a ramble about how it was only compatible magic keeping them together.

Then he saw Ron's wide, hopeful eyes, and he realized the truth with a sigh. _Ron didn't let himself hear that, not really, or at least he's allowing himself to think that I don't mean it. That means that he'll ignore it as long as he can, and I'll have to repeat it to make an impression on him._

"I'm _in love _with Draco," Harry said. "I want to be with him. I want to laugh and joke with him, and tell him when he's wrong." He felt Draco's muscles tighten against his back—extremely well, since Draco didn't wear a shirt. But he saw no need to turn around right now. "I want to have sex with him."

Ron made a strangled noise and lifted his hand in front of his face. "Mate, you don't need to _talk _about that."

"As if you and Hermione weren't having sex half the time when we shared a room together," Harry said. "I knew what it meant when you vanished from the dining hall and then were scribbling away on your Auror Conduct homework the next day."

Ron shook his head, staring at him. Harry sighed and rubbed his head. "The point is that things have changed, Ron. I fell in love with Draco. I was just a little less obvious about it than you were, that's all. And I don't think you have the right to tell me what I can do in regards to him. You don't have the right to threaten him. You'll apologize for making the threat now, or you'll get out of my house and not come back again until you're ready to say sorry."

*

Draco touched Harry's shoulder and felt the muscles shifting beneath his hand. It was a wonderful thing to stroke them, up and down, and rejoice in the physicality and strength Harry exuded while at the same time he listened to words saying Harry was in love with him and wanted to defend him.

He did that to distract himself from the fact that he was sure his reckoning was coming.

Harry finished his latest speech and glared at Weasley. Weasley shuffled his feet and glared at Harry, and then at Draco. Draco raised an eyebrow and draped himself even more outrageously over Harry's back. He didn't need words to make Weasley grind his teeth, he was pleased to see.

Weasley said, "His father tried to kill my sister. He tried to torture us more than once. Have you forgotten that he was going to hit you with an Unforgivable in sixth year, Harry? Have you forgotten that he was going to kill Dumbledore?"

Draco froze. If there was any tactic that might work with Harry, it was this one, and he was a fool not to have foreseen that Weasley would use it. Harry hadn't talked much about their Hogwarts days with Draco, but of course he would resent the memories. Of course he would want to be assured that he had a lover who wouldn't turn on him, who would never hurt him, and Draco was not someone like that. Probably he would wheel around now and glare and speak hurtful words, and then Draco would be the only one left, alone and helpless, with this powerful feeling towards Harry swelling under his sternum.

Then Harry reached back and gripped Draco's hand without turning away from Weasley, and Draco shut his eyes and reprimanded himself for a fool. It was only his fear of being left out of control that had made him say that. He was still afraid of the power of his emotions, still afraid of what would happen if someone he loved should turn on him like Lucius had. He didn't think he could resist Harry.

_But maybe I should think that I might have to, before I panic._

"I'm not forgetting that," Harry said quietly. "I'm replacing the memories with other ones. I know that he didn't want to kill Dumbledore. I know that he isn't his father. I know that I won that fight where he tried to use an Unforgivable on me, and I gave him scars in return—scars that I've seen," he added. He tugged on Draco's hand for a moment, as if he wanted Draco to move forwards and show the scars from _Sectumsempra _on his chest, but Draco stood still. He wasn't about to show off for Granger and Weasley's edification. Harry stroked his wrist in understanding. "And I know that we tortured him, too."

"Not the same way," Weasley said. He took a deep breath like someone getting ready to play the card that he hoped would win him everything. "Did you forget that he almost killed _me_, too, with that poison that he put in the drink?"

Harry winced, and then sighed. "That's something that I don't like to think about," he said, "because of how close we came to losing you."

Draco tensed again, but Harry stroked his wrist a second time. Draco managed to make himself release most of the trapped air in his lungs with a sigh. Harry would probably talk to him about that later.

"I don't _want _you with him," Weasley said, in a deadly tone. He looked up at Draco, and Draco had to remind himself that this look was on a common blood traitor's face to keep himself from recoiling. "That's what I meant. I wouldn't literally kill him, but I'll do my best to keep you from being with him."

Harry shook his head and moved so that Draco was partially shielded from Weasley's eyes. When he spoke again, his voice was much deeper, and Draco shivered. He wondered if that was what Harry's voice would sound like if he ever decided to regard Draco as an enemy.

"Then you'll leave my house," he said, "and if I think that you're still a threat to Draco when the Auror program starts up again, then I'll tell the instructors. I'm sure they'll be interested to know why you can't possibly put up with someone you tolerated all last year."

Weasley turned pale, which was as unpleasant a sight as the red face had been. "You wouldn't—mate, that would ruin my chance to be an Auror."

"And you're ruining my chance to be happy with the person I love." Harry's voice sank again, and he edged forwards. Draco looked down, but couldn't see where Harry's wand was, lowered or raised and pointed at Weasley. "You're trying _very hard _to do that. Go away, Ron. I don't want to look in your face right now."

Weasley stood there with one hand lifted for a minute, as if he thought that that gesture would appeal to Harry where his words hadn't. Draco found himself holding his breath.

Then Weasley whirled away and stamped his way to the front door. Draco winced as it slammed shut, but nothing could have prevented the swift thrill of exaltation that ran through him. He bit his lip, hard, to hold back a triumphant chuckle.

Harry turned to Granger. "Are you going to be the same way about my relationship to Draco?"

Granger shook her head, face thoughtful and almost blank of emotion. She curled her fingers along her jaw as if she was stroking it, but then dropped her hand. "We actually came to talk to you for another reason entirely," she said. "There haven't been any attacks by Nihil since the one on the Ministry, but there has been something else."

"Do you think he's dead?" Harry asked. Draco could hear the relief in his voice to be talking about something else, and pressed reassuringly down on his shoulders. Harry leaned back against him, perhaps not even realizing what he was doing.

_I'm going to remember that, the next time I panic about having his love withdrawn, _Draco told himself. _There's no reason that it should be, not so easily. He told me that he was sharing his vaults with me and living with me and loving me because he wanted to. And he's defended me to his first friend, the friend he once chose over me. That has to mean something._

"No," Granger said. "But I think it might not matter even if he was, because of the other thing that's been reported." She hesitated, and Harry nodded tensely at her. Granger went on as if she'd been waiting for that permission. "The dead are walking, Harry. They've been seen over and over again, and more than one person has seen them at once."

Harry caught his breath; Draco could feel as well as hear it, so close was he standing to Harry. "Are they ghosts, or Inferi?"

Draco could already tell it was more than that, or Granger wouldn't have paid much attention. She shook her head, face grim. "Neither. They look exactly as they did when alive, as if they'd never died or decayed at all. That includes people buried _years _ago." She hesitated, then added, "A few of the pure-blood families have said that they recognize some of their ancestors who have wizarding portraits among the dead."

Draco leaned around Harry. "That's not possible," he said. "It can't happen. There's no such thing as bringing back the dead whole and entire. Either they're ghosts, or they're Inferi, or they change somehow. Even the best necromancers can only make them into shambling things."

Harry gulped loudly. Draco would have asked him why, but Granger was answering in the same sharp tone.

"Don't you think I know that? I've read up on necromancy since I started suspecting that Nihil was practicing it. But the sightings are too common, and they all agree. Not _that _many people can be lying or panicking." Granger shook her head and pushed a frizzy curl of hair back behind her ear. "There's no answer except the one I came up with. Nihil has raised these people somehow. And it would make sense with the other things we know about him. That Nusquam came back. They have the power to _transcend _death, somehow. To get past it, to transform through it." She paused, then added, "I think that's where Nihil is getting his soldiers, like his fake Death Eaters, from. They're not living people that he's corrupted. They're the dead he's raised and filled with grief magic. After all, that would explain why they look like members of pure-blood families, some of them, but no one's reported a family member missing."

Draco shut his eyes. The first, terrible vision that rose up to meet his mind was that of an army of the dead, struggling out of their graves all over wizarding Britain, loyal to Nihil alone. Theoretical necromancy, the kind that wizards only dreamed of practicing or claimed had been possible in Merlin's time, said that the dead brought back like that would be loyal to their summoner. Why not? He was the one who had given them a second chance to live again. They would not see themselves as slaves, the way that summoned ghosts sometimes did and Inferi were; they had their own wills and their own desires. The problem was that the wills and desires were subject to the necromancer from the beginning, but the dead would not see that because they could not be made to feel it. The subjugation was as natural to them as air was to the living.

Draco could imagine no vision more nightmarish.

"Thanks for telling me that, Hermione," Harry said in a queer voice. Draco thought it probably sounded that way because he'd never heard Harry afraid before. "I—I needed to know that. _We _needed to know that," he added, as if he remembered that Draco was behind him and had already lost someone in the war with Nihil.

"Yes." Granger sighed and bowed her head. "So, no, I don't really care about your relationship with Malfoy, as long as it doesn't make you depressed or angry or heartbroken for long stretches of time, because we have much bigger matters to deal with."

She lifted her head and stared straight at Draco, and Draco wanted to back away even more than he had wanted to before Weasley's look. She might _say _those words to reassure Harry, but Draco had no doubt that she would inflict pain on him if he should do something to hurt Harry.

"All right," Harry said, with a nod and a gusty sigh. "Thanks again for coming and telling us about this, Hermione. I'll see you in a few days. Hopefully that will give Ron time to calm down."

Granger nodded to them both this time, withdrawing her piercing eyes from Draco, and then turned and walked towards the front door. Draco waited until he heard the door shut before he dared to shake his head.

"Nihil," he whispered. "The dead walking."

Harry turned towards him, head cocked and smile half-amused and half-dangerous. "Yes, it's terrible news," he said. "If even part of what Hermione said is true. But you needn't think that you can get out of the discussion with me about what happened before she said that."

Draco lifted his head. His confidence was coming back now, and he felt ridiculous that he had ever questioned Harry's love for him. "I didn't say anything that wasn't warranted, especially after the way that he threatened me."

"But you said what you said _before _he threatened you," Harry pointed out. His eyes were dark and direct, and Draco found himself unable to look away. "That's the whole point. You knew how he would react. It's one thing to come down when my friends are here. I don't want to hide this from them or make you feel like you're not welcome in my life, when they are. But it's another thing to attack preemptively. You can hold your temper. You know Ron can't."

Draco frowned at him. "You can't make me responsible for what he said, or for what his sister might have told him."

"I know that," Harry said, with a depth of patience that irritated Draco, because it sounded like he was being patient with a child. "But I _can_ ask that you avoid irritating them when you know what will happen. What happened isn't literally your fault. You didn't know that Ron would make a threat against you, no. But you knew that he would say _something _angry and stupid if you said something cruel, and you didn't have the wit or the will to hold back from saying it."

Draco scowled at the floor. "I have as much right to say what I like as your friends do," he said.

"But they don't have perfect rights, because they know that I'll get angry at them if they do," Harry said. "I have to treat you the same way if you say something I _know _is designed to get them angry."

Draco looked up at that, and he could feel the flush galloping over his skin. "I won't subdue who I am so that you'll continue loving me," he said harshly. "Never."

Harry flinched, but then stood looking at him in a way that made Draco feel smaller than usual. "So it's an essential part of your life and the person you are that you make cruel remarks to my friends?" he asked.

Draco scowled.

"If that's the case," Harry said, "then I really don't see how this can ever work out. And I deceived myself, because I thought you were a better person than that. A stronger one. Yes, you can cut others down, but you don't _need _to do that to be confident or to make yourself larger. Or so I thought." He paused. "Was I wrong?"

Draco shook his head. Harry was twisting it all around, using words that confused the clear issues in Draco's head. A moment ago, he had known exactly what he would have said in answer to any one of Harry's objections. But now, he didn't know.

"I don't think you're that person," Harry said, eyes so intense that it was nearly painful to meet them. "I think it's the force of habit and this feud between the Malfoys and the Weasleys. I won't ask you to give that up overnight, Draco. I won't think that you're hopeless if you say things that Ron takes the wrong way, or if you lose your temper with him sometimes. But if you antagonize him _every _time, then it seems like you want to drive him and his family away from me. I don't want to lose them, either." His voice shook a bit on the last words.

"You didn't give _him _this lecture," Draco said. "And you don't know pure-blood history, Harry, how long the argument has been going. It's not a mere argument. There are matters of pride and honor that—"

"No, I told him to apologize," Harry said, voice steadily growing louder. "Because I thought that was the right course for him, and something he was capable of doing. Whereas I'm telling you to think before you speak, because I think that's something _you're _capable of. And no, I don't know everything. I don't know _anything_. I want you and I love you, Draco, but I want and I love my friends, too. I'm trying to balance between them, and I don't know _how_, and I knew it was going to be hard, but it's different to know that and to live it." He ran his hand through his hair and turned away in frustration.

Draco narrowed his eyes. "Is that the reason that you didn't order me to apologize to Weasley? Because you didn't think I was capable of it?"

Harry glanced back at him and nodded in distraction. "Because of that pride and honor and whatever else. Yes, there are lots of things I don't know about this. But I'm still trying to be fair. I want to be that."

Draco looked at Harry in silence for some time, his emotions colliding and changing so fast that he couldn't have said what he was feeling. Pride that Harry trusted him to keep his temper, irritation that Harry didn't think he could stand apologizing, annoyance that Weasley and Granger had to come along and taint the morning after they slept together for the first time, savage displeasure that Harry had to row with _him_, and a nagging conviction that he couldn't articulate that neither he nor Harry were being quite fair.

Finally he stepped forwards, let his hand rest on Harry's shoulder, and said, "I will try to keep my temper in the future."

Harry looked at him, eyes full of hunger and warmth, and then leaned in to embrace him. "That's all I ask," he said into his ear. "I know you don't really regret the words you said to Ron and Ginny and Mrs. Weasley."

Draco shook his head and hugged Harry back. And he had something else to think about, somewhere down in the private part of his mind that he didn't share with Harry or his mother or his father.

_What does matter to me? What's most important? I thought that the fight with the Weasleys was important, but I didn't even think about that for months last year when we trained together in the Auror program. I thought it was the Malfoy name, but when my father wanted me to choose between that and Harry, I chose Harry._

_Maybe I don't really know who I am. Maybe I don't really know what I want._

_Other than Harry. And I think—I'm not certain, but I think—that he's someone I can try to discover those things with._

*

Harry hesitated, glancing over his shoulder. But Kreacher had just told him that Draco was securely asleep in Harry's bed, and had promised to let Harry know if he woke up.

Harry undid the protections on the doors of the cupboard where he kept the black candles he'd bought in Knockturn Alley, and then sat there, looking in at the candles, the book, the salt he'd bought, and the model he'd made on parchment of various circles that he'd have to draw with the salt.

_Is necromancy that evil? What if I become like Nihil because I'm returning the dead to life? _

But three powerful images hit him between the eyes when he thought that. One was of Sirius tumbling through the veil. The second was of Remus's and Tonks's bodies laid out in the Great Hall. The third was of Fred falling with the grin still frozen on his face.

All of them had been cut down either while they were still young or after lives that were filled with horrible things: false imprisonment, prejudice, months of living in poverty or on the run, constant battle when they were free. It made Harry mad to think of it. What had Remus done, that he deserved an early death? What had Sirius done, other than be a little reckless, a little callous?

They told him he had saved the world. But he hadn't even noticed Remus and Tonks dying in time to save them, and he'd stood by uselessly while Fred fell.

_What good is it, if I save the whole world and not the people who make it up?_

In the end, he shut the doors of the cupboard, with nothing resolved, and then went to bed, where Draco gripped him as if he didn't approve of the pillow Harry had substituted in his place. Harry lay there with his eyes open and tried to think.

_Draco wouldn't like me using necromancy._

_But he doesn't like me being friends with Ron, either._

Harry fell asleep after long hours of alternating between hesitation and intense guilt that he was lying here, alive, with his lover, and other people weren't.


	6. Passing Days

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Six—Passing Days_

Harry shook his head at the newspaper. As usual, the _Daily Prophet _was reporting the story of Nihil's armies, or at least the sightings of the living dead, in the worst way that it possibly could. It chose the most incredible stories, mixed them together with breathless lines from Rita Skeeter about whose fault this could be, and plopped them on the page with headlines in type six inches high.

"One wonders what they would do if these living dead were already killing people," Draco said dryly as he sat down at the table.

"I know," Harry said, and handed the paper off to him to read while he finished his breakfast. Kreacher had learned how to make toast and eggs exactly the way Harry liked them, and he no longer banged his head against the table or the walls because Harry wouldn't take fancier food. Harry crunched through the last piece of toast and looked up. "Why _do_ you think Nihil hasn't ordered them to kill people yet?"

"I don't know." Draco was looking at the photograph on the front page with a deep frown on his face, perhaps because it showed a near-hysterical witch fainting over and over again into the arms of a wizard who just "happened" to stand ready to catch her. "Perhaps that isn't their purpose."

"What else could he want them to do, though?" Harry swallowed the last of his orange juice and leaned back in his chair, tapping the tabletop with his fingers. Draco looked at him with one sharp eye over the top of the paper. Harry grinned and stopped. "I mean, you don't raise an army of the living dead simply to wander around and give a few susceptible people shivers."

Draco shrugged and turned back to the story again. "Who can say what thought would occur to a mind raddled by necromancy? You have to be a bit mad to even take up that study in the first place."

Harry felt the crumbs of the toast turn bitter in his mouth. He stood up more quickly than necessary. "I'm going to go add some things to the training room," he muttered. They had turned a large room on the first floor of the house into a place where they could practice violent spells and compatible magic and not have to worry about them splintering walls or cracking the floor.

Draco nodded at him, seemingly absorbed in his reading. Harry fled.

_But there could be other purposes, _he told himself to dispel his guilt, as he climbed the stairs and turned towards the training room at the top of them. _Draco's never practiced necromancy. _He _doesn't know, not really._

*

Draco hesitated, and then scribbled out a line in the letter he'd written. He wanted to write to the War Wizards and make it sound as though he were loftily inquiring about a place in their ranks because of a passing interest in their methods, not because he was fascinated to the point of irritation that he was shut out.

_Then relax, _said his father's voice in his ear.

Draco frowned automatically, but leaned back in his chair and tried to think about the matter clearly. Just because his father was a bastard didn't mean it wasn't good advice. God knew that he needed to put down his words so that no one else could misunderstand them, and a few minutes of rational thought would contribute more to that purpose than an hour of excited babbling.

_Why do I want to be a War Wizard so much? _Draco thought, imagining that someone from their group had come and asked him that. _There are disadvantages. I've already begun my training as an Auror, and they would be sure to point that out. War Wizards have dangerous jobs; I couldn't want to join up because it would be safer than being an Auror. And there's the possibility that I would have to leave Harry behind, compatible magic or not._

Unfortunately, Draco knew the answer to that question. It was unfortunate because it was not an answer the War Wizards would want to hear.

_I love power._

It had to be something less naked than that, Draco acknowledged reluctantly, something that would seem to do honor to the War Wizards' reputation and purpose. They were supposed to intervene in those situations where the enemies were too strong for the Aurors to handle. They were supposed to be the guarantee against war, and the Ministry hadn't used them more often because there was the fear that they would become bullies, crushing _all _opposition. Using them in ordinary Dark wizard work, or for that matter their spells, would be like using a hammer to crush a gnat.

Or so the books and pamphlets and letters Draco had read had said.

He still wanted their spells, though. He still thought those spells could be useful in ordinary Auror work, and besides, he wanted to feel them thrumming through his wand and his bones. What would happen when they were multiplied by the force of the compatible magic that he shared with Harry?

Draco shivered simply sitting there. The only thing that could compare to the golden feeling overtaking him when he thought of being a War Wizard was the thought of sex with Harry.

_They might not be so different. Even that makes me feel powerful._

Draco licked his lips and focused on the letter. What excuse would make his intentions clear and yet not offensive? How could he write so that the War Wizards would be prepared to grant him an interview and never dream that he thought of something else than serving the country day and night, to the last drop of his blood? (Draco did not for one second believe that all the War Wizards were really that sincere, but their propaganda made it clear that they wouldn't consider candidates who couldn't speak the language).

And then the perfect thing occurred to him. He nearly laughed out loud as he took out a fresh sheet of parchment and began to write.

_Dear Wizard Cardogan:_

_I am writing to you because I am concerned that the Aurors' spells may not be of enough use in defending the Ministry against the living dead, and I am interested in what more you can teach me and Auror trainees like me._

The Ministry had already been attacked once. No one could say that it wouldn't be attacked again, especially when Nihil seemed to have a grudge against several of the Auror instructors, and him, and Harry. And Draco was asking only for teaching in individual spells, not admission into their ranks—which, in truth, was all he wanted.

_There, _Draco thought as he sealed the letter and got up to persuade Harry to go to Diagon Alley so they could find a post-owl. _Let's see what response that produces._

*

"I am sorry, mate."

Harry raised one eyebrow and leaned back in his chair. Ron said the words with a downcast expression that Harry could believe easily enough. But he didn't know if Ron was apologizing because he was upset for having displeased Harry or because he was really sorry.

_And would I have demanded an absolutely sincere apology from Draco? _Harry thought. _Or an absolutely sincere holding of his temper? I know that he'll only do it because I asked him to, and not because he has any desire to be friends with anyone named Weasley._

Besides, it was probably a bit much to assume that Ron would change his mind all at once, and then punish him if he didn't. Harry decided to accept this in the spirit it was given. Ron _had _cared enough to come here and do it in person instead of trying to foist it off on a firecall or an owl, after all.

"I forgive you," Harry said. "But why in the world did you say something so stupid, Ron? You were able enough to accept him when he was my friend. Why is his being my lover so different?"

Ron stared at the floor, and said nothing.

"You can't think that I'm going to get back together with Ginny," Harry said, and frowned when he saw the way Ron flushed. "I mean, you _can't_, can you? Why? We've already said everything that we had to say to each other, and you know I would have stayed with her, but she was the one to throw me out, and then act as if she had some kind of power, or should have, over me still. Why would I want to go back to her? Besides, I'm happy with Draco. You can't imagine." He heard the way his voice broke on the last words, and coughed in embarrassment.

Ron finally looked up, and his eyes were bright and steady, but his voice was a mumble. "Friends are one thing, mate. I've never thought that I was more important to you than Hermione, or the other way around." Harry thought about reminding Ron of the fights they'd had in Hogwarts, but that would just start another row, and so he was quiet. "But a lover—I'm afraid Malfoy will be more important to you than we are. I'm afraid that there's nothing we can do, and he'll take you away from us."

It took Harry a long time to find his voice, especially because he could more or less guess what it had cost Ron to say that. Finally he whispered back, "Ron, I'll never let you or Hermione go, not without a fight—a much worse fight than I went through when I gave Ginny up. You have to know that, because I know that you feel the same way about me. And you don't think Hermione is more important to you than I am, do you? I just know that she's important in a different way."

Ron stood up and paced in a circle around the sitting room. Harry leaned forwards and looked at him. He was glad, just now, that Draco had gone to Diagon Alley to shop for something mysterious and wouldn't be back for a few hours. He didn't want anyone to interrupt Ron and make him speak before he was ready.

"Hermione doesn't want to take me away from you," Ron finally said, and stopped and faced Harry now as if he was determined to get all the words out at once. "I know Malfoy wants to take _you_ away from _us_. It's in the way he smirks, and the way he came down and put that arm around your shoulder the other day." Harry didn't point out that "the other day" had been a fortnight ago. He knew anger did strange things to Ron's sense of time. "And it's in the way he talked to Ginny and my mum. I'm just afraid that we're going to lose you to him, and you won't even _notice_. You'll think that you're spending just as much time with us as you ever did, but it won't be true."

Harry blinked. He had to admit, that was not a view of things that had occurred to him before. And it did fit with Draco's character that he would want to keep Harry all to himself and would be pleased if Harry's friends stopped visiting. That was something Ron might well have noticed that Harry didn't.

But Ron was forgetting one thing, the way Ron and Draco had both forgotten it when they fought. Harry thought it was time to remind him again.

"Ron," he said gently, "I have a will of my own. If it turned out he was doing that, I would fight my way back. And if he cared more for angering you than he did for loving me, then I would drop him." _Not without tearing my heart from my body, _he wanted to say, but didn't, because he thought Ron wouldn't have been as open with him about his feelings for Hermione.

He also didn't say that he thought this would never happen, because Ron was watching him with bright eyes, and that was clearly what he needed to hear. "Really, mate?" he breathed.

"Yes," Harry said. "_If _that happened. Which I don't think it will."

It seemed that the assurance was enough for Ron. He immediately relaxed and smiled, and said, "Good. That was—that was what I was worried about. Losing you, and you seeming glad to go."

Ron was flushing by now, and Harry was feeling uncomfortable himself. He wanted to hear the words "I love you" from Draco, but he didn't often talk with Ron about their friendship. And he didn't now. He stood up, patted his shoulder, mumbled a few words, and then sent Ron out the door.

Ron reached it just as Draco was coming back in. Harry tensed, but although they sneered at each other, Draco stood aside to let Ron pass, and Ron hurried off without speaking any insults.

Harry sighed in relief, and then smiled at Draco. "No answer to your letter yet?" He knew Draco had written to the War Wizards, and he had to admit he was curious to see what they would say.

Draco shook his head, looking disgusted. "They sent me a pamphlet and a letter 'thanking me for my interest.' But nothing more than that." He touched Harry's shoulder, with a light, quick motion that for some reason made Harry have to close his eyes to absorb it. "I take it Weasley apologized?"

Harry nodded. "Yes. He was afraid of losing me to you, that was all."

"Well, he should be," Draco muttered.

Harry laughed, and leaned towards him, and kissed him, and then they had more interesting things to do than argue about Ron.

*

Harry's birthday was celebrated with his friends, of course. Draco knew he had gone over to the Burrow the night before, but it seemed Granger couldn't be there, and she had borne Weasley with her somewhere, so he had a second birthday party at Grimmauld Place.

Draco sat as patiently as he could through the opening of those friends' presents: dull books from Granger, a pair of Quidditch gloves from Weasley, and a poster of the Chudley Cannons from Weasley, too. Harry had glanced at him more and more as the celebration went on. He knew Draco had a gift for him, because Draco had said that, but he didn't see it in the small pile on the table.

Draco simply smiled at him, and said nothing. When the celebration finished and it seemed as though Weasley might start jeering at him for not getting Harry a gift, he stood up, said, "My present had to be contained in a different place, because I couldn't wrap it," and went to fetch the shining glass cage from the top of the house.

Politesse sat beside it, guarding it. He stood up, wagging his scorpion tail gently, when he saw Draco. Draco nodded to him and picked up the case. The creature inside lunged at the walls and hissed at him, annoyed.

Draco carried the cage very carefully down the stairs. The ceremony of binding Harry to this creature had to be done just right, or it would fly madly away at best, take some other master at worst. It was the reason Draco hadn't opened the cage since he bought it in Knockturn Alley.

He brought the cage into the dining room, and heard Granger stop talking with a gasp. Weasley's jaw hung open, which Draco preferred to his chatter. Harry was the last to turn around, slowly, as if Draco's gift was so important to him that he wanted some anticipation before he saw what it was.

Draco smiled as he set the cage down on the table. Yes, that was as it should be. If he was the most important person in Harry's life, then his present should be the most important one Harry received.

Harry opened his mouth with a great gasp, but didn't say anything. He moved forwards instead, staring at the cage reverently.

Inside crouched one of the tiny creatures that Draco had heard were being smuggled into the country, and had received confirmation of when he ventured into Knockturn Alley. It was, to all appearances, a small dragon, though with long, slender horns to crown its head, a fringe of spikes around its neck, a longer tail proportionate to its size, and no ability to breathe fire. Its scales glowed blue-green, with flashes of gold on the flanks and the wings. Its eyes were pure gold, and, at the moment, shone with menace as it flung itself at the walls of the cage, screaming in a high voice.

Harry recovered first, the way Draco had thought he would. "I reckon there's some way to tame it," he said, smiling at Draco.

"Of course there is," Draco said, and returned that smile with an interest that made Harry blush. He ignored Granger's spluttering about illegal animals from across the table. Really, these fire-dancers—named for their color, and not their breath—were only illegal as long as they weren't bonded to a master. Once they were, they could be as docile as any other pet.

He held out his wand, and Harry extended his hand without protest. Draco murmured a simple charm. Harry's hand began to bleed in the web between his thumb and his forefinger.

Draco stepped back and opened the lid of the cage.

The fire-dancer flung itself into the air, accompanied by a shriek from Granger. For a moment, it hovered, turning its head from side to side. Draco smiled. It was a beautiful thing, even when it bared its long fangs and brought a gleam of unexpected and shining white into its colors.

But then it smelled the blood and immediately dived, digging hooked claws into Harry's shoulder and arm to balance itself. Harry gasped, but held still. The fire-dancer shot out a long, forked tongue, and began lapping impatiently at the blood, hissing all the while as if displeased that it was such a small amount.

When it finished, though, it lifted its head to Harry and uttered a gentler hiss. The cut had sealed itself already. The fire-dancer leaped to Harry's shoulder and shoved its head against his chin like a cat. Harry lifted a hesitant hand and started stroking the soft, smooth scales.

"He's beautiful," Harry said, and his voice was soft and dazed, and Draco smiled at him in triumph.

"Isn't he? He's called a fire-dancer, Harry. I found him in a shop that had a shipment of them, unbonded, that it wanted to get rid of. And I thought he would be the perfect gift for you, since you speak Parseltongue and you need someone to keep you out of trouble." Draco shared a smile with Harry that was purely private. "The way that I have Politesse."

Harry nodded. He seemed utterly absorbed in the fire-dancer, which was investigating his cheeks with its tongue. Granger was the one who spoke next. "Those things are _dangerous, _Malfoy."

Draco smiled pleasantly at her. "How do you know? In fact, bonded fire-dancers are perfectly legal, because they never hurt anyone save at their owner's command. They can't breathe fires, so they're in no danger of causing the kind of damage that a real dragon could. And they can keep an eye on their owners a lot more easily than some other pets, because they can fly and they can track the vibrations of their owners' heartbeats."

"But it drinks blood!" Weasley blurted. Draco sighed; the git had recovered enough to be annoying. "That means it _has _to be a Dark creature!"

Draco would have disdained to answer, except that Harry was looking at him inquiringly, and Draco knew that he would have questions of his own about the way the fire-dancer had lapped at blood. "Only the first meal," he said. "The one that bonds it to its owner. After that, it eats meat and fish, and nothing else unless its owner tells it to." He turned to Harry, and away from Weasley and Granger. "What are you going to call him?"

Harry, his eyes locked on Draco, offered a smile that was different from the one they'd shared before. This was smaller, but also deeper. Draco licked his lips and was glad that the table was in the right position to hide his reaction to that smile from Weasley and Granger.

"Flash," Harry said. "Because it would be repetitive to call him Draco."

Draco accepted the tribute with a slight turn of his head and a flutter of his lashes that he could hear making Weasley gag. That was a secondary benefit, of course, compared to the way that it made Harry's eyes glow.

*

Harry flipped through his necromancy book, growing more and more frustrated. It seemed that all the other rituals, beyond the simple one he had used to see the vision of Sirius, were so insanely complicated that he could never gather all the ingredients he needed without alerting Draco as to what he was doing.

Flash, sleeping on top of a cabinet in the attic, opened one eye and then closed it again. Harry had noted that he often did that, as if he wanted to make sure that his owner was always within touching distance.

Harry smiled at him, and for a moment let his gaze linger. Draco had given him a magnificent gift. Harry had thanked him, he hoped, properly and at length that night, and yet it still didn't make up for it. Harry could never have afforded Politesse. He'd been given him by someone who, he thought now, was probably fleeing from the Ministry and had to give up all his exotic animals before he was caught with them and condemned. Draco had bought Flash with his own money.

_And this is the way you repay him. By studying necromancy._

Harry winced and took a deep breath. Sometimes, he thought of explaining to Draco how important the dead were to him, why he thought it was so unfair that Sirius and Remus and so many others hadn't got the chance to live out their lives, but then he remembered. Draco hadn't known those people, or he had known them and hadn't cared for them, like Remus and Fred. Harry didn't think he could make him understand, and one of the things he feared most in the world was for Draco to look at him with blank eyes or a face full of hatred.

Flash opened one eye again, and then fluttered up from the cabinet and landed on Harry's shoulder, wreathing his tail around Harry's neck. He had a strange noise that he made when Harry was upset, not quite a purr, but probably the closest to it that a reptile could make—a low buzz. He did it now. Harry stroked his back and tried to take his thoughts away from necromancy. Draco would be back soon. He should go down and wait for him.

He flipped one more page, idly.

And then stopped.

On this page, which he had never looked at before—the book was thick—was an illustration. It looked as though it had been hastily done, and Harry didn't think he would have recognized it if he hadn't seen it before.

A wheel, with the leaves of deadly nightshade twined around the axle and through the spokes.

The symbol that the Battle Healer Portillo Lopez carried hidden on her skin.


	7. The New and the Old

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_Chapter Seven—The New and the Old_

Harry collapsed into bed and stared at the ceiling, his head whirling. He had thought, two days ago, that his most pressing problem would be to find a way to explain the symbol in the necromancy book to Draco and his friends without arousing their suspicions.

Then they'd arrived back for Auror training, and the sheer _busyness _of the first day had driven that entirely out of his head until now. At the moment, he was wondering rather dismally how they would survive the term.

*

"Most of you had my classes last year," Jennifer Morningstar said, moving back and forth in front of them with an energy Draco envied her. He felt as though someone had struck him merely because he'd had to get up earlier than he'd been used to during the summer. "Nothing has changed, except the training exercises, the intensity, and the amount of time I will expect you to spend practicing each week." She paused with a serene smile and looked around the room. "Any questions?"

Everyone stared gloomily back at her. Draco repressed a sigh. _I can see Combat is going to be as fun this year as it was last year._

"Malfoy." Morningstar nodded to him, and Draco found himself on his feet, responding to the crisp command in her voice, before he thought about it. "Show me what you remember from the lessons last year, against…" She paused, gaze traveling around the circle, and Draco found himself hoping she wouldn't pick Harry. The way they had learned to "move" together was not the approved one.

"Against Ventus," Morningstar finished with a pleased little nod.

Draco blinked and turned his head. Their classes had been rearranged for this second year, and so he was with many people who were at the same level as they were but whom he'd never seen. Ventus was apparently a tiny woman with dread-filled big blue eyes who stood up on trembling legs when Morningstar looked at her and shuffled nervously forwards.

Draco bowed to her, in the Morningstar-approved fashion, and then fell back into a defensive crouch. Ventus stood there as if she didn't know where to put her hands and feet.

"Begin," Morningstar said, and moved out of the way.

Draco launched a cautious attack. Ventus bent aside from it. Draco tried to kick her in the stomach. She wasn't there. He tried to catch her across the ankles with a sweep from his foot. Somehow, she had leaped gracefully over it with an energy that Draco wouldn't have thought was in her.

And then she began to fight in earnest.

The rest of the fight was more or less a blur in Draco's memory. Around, upside-down, from angles that he wasn't certain existed, Ventus attacked, and her eyes blazed with joy and her hair flew around her. Draco managed to keep from getting too badly hurt, but that still left him with bruised elbows, a scraped cheek, and one blow to the solar plexus that made him bend over and gasp.

"You need to practice more," was the only comment Morningstar made before she called another pair up, and Draco went back to sit next to Harry, with a resolve to learn more and better healing spells as soon as possible.

And keep an eye on a certain student who seemed, when he whispered the question to someone else, to be named Ursula Ventus.

*

"_This _is the year when you learn most everything," Samwise Ketchum said, sweeping a slow glance around their group. Though he caught Harry's eye, as he seemed to catch everyone's, he didn't pay him any special attention. Harry and Draco might as well have been ordinary students rather than, last year, working with the instructors to try and prevent a takeover by Nihil. "The second year is crucial. Last year you learned elementary ways to avoid obstacles and navigate battlefields.

"_This _year," and Ketchum stepped back to gesture at the looming mess of ladders, floating cubes, ropes, and platforms before them, "you will build your own courses."

Harry grinned and shot a glance at Draco, to see if the notion excited him. Draco looked back with what seemed annoyance. Harry winced at the sight of the bruises on his face and murmured another pain-subduing charm under his breath. Draco blinked at him, probably feeling it take effect, and then smiled slightly.

"Trainee Potter, we'll begin with you."

Harry started guiltily, and then stepped out of line; it was that or have everyone else edge away from him, which was even more embarrassing. He cleared his throat and tried to pretend he had the remotest idea of what Ketchum had been talking about. "Yes, sir?"

"If you had to _prevent _someone from getting into the upper left-hand corner of this room," Ketchum said, "how would you do it?"

Harry surveyed the obstacle course between him and that corner slowly, then stepped to the side and looked it over again. This was one of the times he really hated having bad eyesight. Just when he thought he'd seen everything that was in the way, another rope or stone or wall planted firmly in mid-air would blaze out at him.

Then he saw Ketchum leaning slightly forwards from the corner of his eye, and remembered that this was one teacher who valued creative solutions.

"I'd burst apart everything between here and there, sir," he said firmly.

Ketchum arched an eyebrow. "Indeed? And what would keep your enemy from simply conjuring more things to stand on? Flotation charms are simple, you know."

"I'd lay down the Stasis Charm so that they couldn't use the same kinds of spells that are keeping these things aloft," Harry said, waving an arm at the midair obstacle course. "And while they were trying to figure out another combination of spells that would work, I'd attack them."

"From behind what cover?" demanded Ketchum.

"A Disillusionment Charm," Harry said, glad that he'd thought it over before he responded. He'd been about to say that he'd leave some of the chairs and walls on the floor in place, but then Ketchum would have asked why his enemies couldn't pile those obstacles on top of each other to reach the left-hand corner.

Ketchum stared at him with piercing eyes so long that Harry started to worry Disillusionment Charms were subject to some restriction he'd forgotten about. Then Ketchum nodded.

"Acceptable," he said. "Useless your enemies were intelligent enough to use a spell that reveals the presence of hidden humans in a room, but acceptable." Harry stepped gratefully back into line as Ketchum faced the left-hand corner of the room and extended his wrist. "_This _is how I would do it…"

*

Draco couldn't help looking suspiciously around as they filed into Concealment and Disguise, a large, round room deep in the Ministry he'd never entered. There were cushions scattered on the floor, but no desks. Draco frowned even more. He still found Auror Ketchum's informality grating at times. He hoped this didn't mean that they would have another far-too-relaxed instructor.

"My name is Auror Ysabel Davidson."

Draco started. What he had thought was a bookcase in the corner, or at least a long, deep shadow cast by one of the flickering torches, revealed itself to actually be a tall woman clad in Auror robes. They were a shade darker than normal, Draco thought, using observation to relieve his embarrassment as she glided into the center of the room. The woman had large dark eyes and black hair that twisted in elaborate curls across her scalp.

Auror Davidson gestured with one curled hand. Draco found himself taking a seat on the nearest cushion without thinking about it. Weasley flopped down with a surprised expression on his face.

_He probably isn't used to obeying anyone except Granger, _Draco thought in irritation, and then turned around and fixed his eyes on Davidson.

"You will learn many things here," Davidson said in a cool voice, pacing in front of them. Her robes flowed around her feet with a gentle swishing sound. Draco relaxed. Davidson must have had training in a school that taught her to moderate her tones, make herself elegant, and move with care. That was refreshing next to people like the Mudblood Ketchum and the disorganized Hestia Jones. "The title of the class is somewhat misleading. Concealment and Disguise, yes, but that involves more than learning how to change your face. It is not by the face alone that others recognize us." She pointed a long, manicured fingernail at Weasley. "What do you think people recognize you by, Trainee Weasley?"

"Er," Weasley said, and knotted his hands together as if he was facing some hard exam question. "My hair?"

Davidson considered him in silence, her head on one side, and then said, "If you say it, then it _must _be so." Draco snickered, unable to help himself, even though it earned him an elbow in the side from Harry and a sharp glare from Granger. "There are other methods, but yes, in fact, I did recognize you as part of your family without knowing your name due to your hair." She looked around the class. "Now that you have seen me for a full five minutes, what would you recognize me by?"

"Your height," Granger said.

"Your voice," Draco said, and tried to make Harry participate with a nudge of his own, but Harry glared at him and sat still.

"And yet," a new person said, in a high, shrill tone, "those things can change."

Draco turned back, and gaped. The new person was not a secondary instructor who had entered the class, as he had assumed, but Davidson herself. She was slumped over now, the expression on her face relaxed and open and a bit dazed. Her voice was different, but not high-pitched enough that Draco would have believed it exaggerated. She looked like someone for whom the words "good nature" were an integral part of her soul.

Davidson turned towards them, head swaying, and clucked her tongue. "Ah, you are all _staring_. I get that every year." She laughed, and the laughter was free and joyous and loud, the kind of laughter Draco had heard from Harry after they made love. It didn't fit at all with the restrained demeanor Davidson had presented just a short time before. "Do try to remember, changing a few things can change the whole. It will work less well over time as you know me." She paused. "If you ever do."

Draco scowled. _I would have appreciated one elegant instructor to take Dearborn's place. Now, I reckon, we won't have one._

*

"My name is Patricia Coronante."

Draco groaned, and Harry wanted to kick his ankle for being so rude, but their desks were too far apart. He knew that it couldn't be the name alone that was making Draco upset. It was probably the fact that they had walked into the classroom and found Auror Coronante, who had bright orange hair, standing on her head.

Coronante had gone on standing on her head while she encouraged them to find seats, and then had proceeded to greet most of them by name. Harry wasn't surprised about that when it came to him, Draco, and Ron, but Hermione had sat up proudly when her name was called and looked at Coronante in some curiosity.

"I'm sure you didn't expect to find an instructor like this for Stealth and Tracking, did you?" Coronante flipped back to her feet and jumped down from the desk where she'd been perched. "I've had a lot of people who ask me how I can teach it. I'm noisy, they tell me, in more ways than one." She touched her bright hair and grinned.

Draco muttered something under his breath. This time, Harry extended his leg the awkward distance and _did _kick his ankle. Draco nursed it and glared at him from the corner of his eye.

"Too many people overestimate the role of silence in Stealth," Coronante said cheerfully. "You can be as noisy as you like and still have your prey look past you, as long as you're doing what they expect to see."

Harry saw Hermione already scribbling notes on a piece of parchment. Coronante drifted towards her, and she looked up. An expression of guilt flashed across her face. Harry wondered why, but then remembered the way that Hermione often behaved around the professors at Hogwarts when they were planning something, like their investigation of the Chamber of Secrets. Whether or not she had broken a rule in a way they could have punished her for, she felt a kind of generalized guilt.

"For example," Coronante said, "you'd be able to hide as a student in a school very well, Trainee Granger. You like writing things down and looking studious and busy. But how would you be able to follow someone around a city without getting noticed?"

Hermione caught her lip between her teeth. Harry felt sorry for her. It was probably one of the few times in her life that she didn't know the answer.

"That sounds like a question that I would answer in Concealment and Disguise instead, Auror Coronante," she said at last.

Coronante beamed and stepped back from her desk. "Good! These two subjects work together, in fact, and I'll often question you about something Auror Davidson has taught you or give you exercises to do in her class. But one thing that clearly separates Stealth and Tracking from Concealment and Disguise is that Stealth concentrates more on behavior than on body language, and on following your prey, not simply going unnoticed." She cocked her head at the rest of the class. "Why aren't you writing this down?"

"She's going to be bloody awful," Draco whispered in complaint to Harry as he pulled out a parchment and a quill.

Harry rolled his eyes and didn't respond. They hadn't talked much so far about Draco's reaction to Muggleborns, and Harry knew they would have to. But he didn't want to start today.

*

_They have compatible magic._

Draco sat up the moment their instructors for Partnership Trust walked into the room, but he wasn't exactly looking at their faces or their robes or the way they moved, though it was a combination of all those things that forced him to the appropriate conclusion. These weren't any two Aurors, or even a pair who worked well together and had decided to teach a class that would require teamwork. It went deeper and further than that.

Beside him, Harry made a choking sound. Draco smiled, glad that he had recognized the same thing, though he probably wouldn't be able to identify it as quickly as Draco could.

"Greetings," said the man. He was heavily muscled, much more so than Draco was used to seeing on Aurors, who seemed to tend to slenderness and speed. He had straw-colored hair and pale green eyes, nowhere near as startling as Harry's. His voice and his face were both calm, exquisite models of good breeding. Draco's hope for a properly restrained teacher rose again. "My name is Frederick Lowell. This is my partner, Charlotte Weston."

The woman dipped a curtsey to them, which was heartening to see. Her hair was a rich chestnut, trimmed short and floating around her chin and ears. Her eyes were black, like Professor Snape's, but warm.

"As some of you might have already guessed," she said, with a quick glance at Harry and Draco, "we share compatible magic. But that doesn't mean we can't teach people without it how to handle themselves in battle and trust one another. By the end of this year, in June, you will be assigned partners. Of course, assignment comes in the case of your being unable to _discover _someone who meshes and melds with you. We will all hope for the finding instead." She smiled. The smile was again much warmer, but Draco thought he could compare it favorably with his mother's.

"Some of you may wonder," Lowell said, moving off to the left of the room, and so towards Draco, "why an entire class on learning to trust your partner? After all, you do learn similar things in other classes. Fighting with partners and squads in Hand-to-Hand Combat, which you will be doing this year. Fighting in teams, as you did in Offensive and Defensive Magic." He paused a moment, head bowed, and Draco was certain he was remembering Auror Dearborn. "And you will have heard about the importance of acting and fighting next to someone else in Auror Conduct."

"But this class is necessary," Weston said, voice low and perfectly pleasant but also piercing. _Professor Snape would have liked her, _Draco thought as he turned to face her. _She has his methods of getting attention. _"Among other things, too many people forget those lessons by the time they come to gain a partner of their own, or they are unable to remove them from the context of one class and see the commonalities between them."

Draco looked hard at Harry. It was even more amusing when Harry stared back at him blankly, obviously not seeing all the many ways that Weston's comment could apply to him.

"We will demonstrate an example of our partnership to you," Lowell said. "But that is not all. You will be seeing how other partners react and fight and work together in day-to-day life."

"Sometimes it's the paperwork that causes disagreements," said Weston, with a small smile, "and not the cases at all."

"This sounds like a class in how to be married," sneered someone from the back of the room. Draco turned and saw a dark-haired young man with his feet on the desk, his hands behind his head, and an expression so superior on his face that Draco promptly wanted to strike it off.

"A good marriage and a good Auror partnership are much alike, Trainee Bane," Weston said. "Alas, that we can only teach you how to master one."

Draco made sure that Bane heard him snicker at that. That got him a glance of dislike, but Draco didn't care. It would have been a shame for someone like that to prefer him.

"And you have to take this class if you want to continue your training," Lowell said, in the tone of someone settling an argument. "So there's that."

Bane leaned against the back of his chair and folded his arms. "I'll be watching to see how useful it is," he muttered.

_And I'll be watching for any opportunity to see you fall, _Draco thought.

Harry gave him a warning glance. Draco, pulling out parchment, could easily pretend that he'd missed it.

*

"This class," said Hestia Jones, her eyes very bright and her voice very shrill, "is a combination of Observation and Charms—I mean, Defensive and Offensive Magic—oh, dear…"

A large stack of papers had fallen off her desk onto the floor. As she crouched down to retrieve them, another stack fell. Harry heard laughter break out around the room, and winced. He knew a lot of students found Hestia comical or only looked forwards to her class because the homework was easy, but he remembered how it had felt to have dozens of eager, expectant eyes on him when he felt too young for the job.

_She really belongs in the field, _he thought, as he surreptitiously waved his wand under his desk and made the paper stick together in clumps so it would be easier to gather. _Not teaching. She did well with the Order of the Phoenix._

Hestia shot him a grateful glance—perhaps she'd felt the spell—and stood up, stacks safely together once more. "So," she said, as she faced her audience. "That's the definition of Quick Response. You'll be doing a lot of acting as well as writing—I mean, you'll be _taking action._" Harry smiled, cheered by that. Maybe that would play to Hestia's strengths. "For now, I'll just give you the list of studying I expect you to undertake."

"You're smiling at her a lot," Draco said under his breath as Harry leaned out to accept a stack of paper from Hestia. They were sitting at the very front of the row, and Harry managed to shake his head and murmur a response as he handed one parchment to Draco and the rest down the line of students.

"She's nervous. I know what that's like. And she was a friend, or sort of, during the Order of the Phoenix days. She came to help guard me when the Order flew me from my relatives' house to Grimmauld Place the summer before fifth year."

"You still don't have to smile at her that much," Draco said, this time with a sharper edge to the whisper.

"And you don't have to be that jealous," Harry said in return, annoyed, and they didn't speak for the rest of the class.

*

"Welcome to the Spell Lexicon."

Draco managed to keep himself from jumping, but only just. This room was larger than the one in which they met with Davidson, and also had better acoustics. The walls looked to be stone at first, but Draco touched one as they went to one of the neat rows of benches lined up in the center of the room and felt a slickness that had never been part of natural stone. He frowned and rubbed his fingers. It would make sense that they'd altered the walls somehow to keep spells from bouncing off them and hitting students, but like this?

Then the instructor stepped into the middle of the room, and he forgot everything else.

_This _man moved like a fighter. He was nearly Draco's height, but he had whipcord muscles everywhere and fierce pride in his eyes, which were dark. Draco could forgive, if only just, the red tinge to his hair for the sake of the expression of slight contempt he used to survey his students. Draco didn't mind contempt when it came from someone who looked much older and wiser.

"My name is Roger Aran," said the man. "I was retired from my business, which was spellcrafting, but they're short on instructors this year and asked me to help." He smiled, as if to say he knew exactly where the shortage had come from and thought the Ministry idiots for allowing several of their teachers to be killed or driven away by Nihil. "Other people _will _teach this class. But it, and you, are under my ultimate control. Do you understand?"

Granger put her hand up. Draco rolled his eyes and wondered why she wasn't more intimidated by competence when she saw it. "Please, sir," she said, "why is this class called the Spell Lexicon?"

Aran's lip curled. "A lexicon is meant to improve your vocabulary," he said. "I will be improving your vocabulary of spells. Powerful spells, minor ones, cleaning and healing and offensive and defensive spells. Whatever I think important, you'll learn it." He leaned forwards confidingly. "Including several spells that I've invented myself."

Draco felt his heart give an excited leap. _Perhaps I won't need to become a War Wizard to get access to good knowledge after all._

He thought Aran looked directly at him for a moment, perhaps because of his expression, but then he turned away and began to bark the description of the first spell. Draco wrote fit to break his hand, and felt overwhelmed with happiness when the class was over.

And the need to learn more, and more.

*

Harry shook his head and closed his eyes. Definitely too much information and too many different subjects to absorb in one day.

But not so much that he hadn't taken one more look at his necromancy book before he fell asleep. The symbol of the wheel with deadly nightshade along its spokes linked Portillo Lopez to an order of assassins.

But not an order that was meant to kill the living, as Harry had at once assumed. An order meant to kill the living dead, to, as the book put it, "return them to the embrace of the ground and the natural order of things."

Harry had no idea what to do with _that_.


	8. Burned

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Eight—Burned_

Draco tried to think of a good way to introduce the subject, and finally decided that there was none. So he simply started talking about it one night when both he and Harry were compiling a list of the moves they had trouble defending against in Combat. It was Morningstar's somewhat ruthless way to make sure they knew their weaknesses.

"Harry?"

Harry, biting the end of the quill as though the bird it had come from had done something to offend him personally, blinked and looked up. "What?"

"I've received a letter from a War Wizard who seems interested in talking to us," Draco said. "Both of us. Will you come with me and see what he wants?"

Harry bit the quill one more time, and then laid it aside. He leaned forwards, brow wrinkling. It made him look so honest and so puzzled that Draco wondered how in the world he had ever kept as many secrets as he had. "Both of us? But I thought you wanted training only for yourself."

"I could never leave you behind!" Draco exclaimed, and so solved the problem he'd been wrestling with, whether he would take War Wizard training alone if that was what was offered. He felt a little shaken by the sudden revelation, but it made Harry smile, and for the moment, that was all that counted. "No," Draco continued, "this is the first time that a War Wizard has answered my letters with something other than a pamphlet and a polite little note, and I think it's significant that he mentioned wanting to see us both. So. Will you come?"

Harry didn't reject the idea right away, the way Draco had been afraid he would. Instead, he looked thoughtful. "I've never understood what it is you see in the War Wizards that you can't find in the Aurors," he said. "After all, they both work for the Ministry and fight Dark wizards—although the War Wizards do it less often. Is that what you're thinking?" He began to grin. "That Auror training is too much work?"

Draco rolled his eyes. "Need I remind you who is currently doing better in our classes?"

"Just because you can keep up doesn't mean you want to, or that it isn't a struggle for you," Harry said.

That was so unexpectedly insightful that Draco sat still and blinked for a moment before he could go on. "Yes, well," he said. "I enjoy learning what we do in these classes, and I became an Auror in the first place because I wanted to show people what I could do on my own. I think that would be a goal less served in the War Wizards, because fewer people have heard of them."

Harry didn't respond, but cocked his head and waited, it seemed, for Draco to come to some kind of conclusion.

"On the other hand," Draco said, scarcely aware that he had lowered his voice and leaned towards Harry until after he had already begun doing it, "the War Wizards wield more powerful spells. That has the potential to keep me safer than becoming an Auror would, and also give me a reputation that would matter to the people I want to impress. I don't think I need to tell you why I'd be grateful for a little extra power right now."

Harry nodded. "So that's it? Power?"

Draco lifted his head defiantly. Harry hadn't judged him so far, at least not the way Granger and Weasley frequently did, but that didn't mean much if he had simply kept his judgments to himself. "Yes," he said. "I want to defend myself. I want to show that I have pride. I want to be independent, and never rely on anyone else to shelter me ever again."

"Including me?" Harry put a hand on Draco's wrist. "Is that why you're thinking about leaving Auror training behind, because the compatible magic makes you feel dependent?"

Draco stirred restlessly. He had never phrased the issue to himself in exactly those words—after all, the compatible magic was one of the things that united him to Harry, and he had meant it when he said that he would give up the chance to be a War Wizard before he would give up Harry. But sometimes, yes, he woke up with thoughts that told him his life was bound to someone else's, and that made him panic.

_What happens if someone corners me and uses my relationship with Harry to blackmail me or make me serve them? Even if my father didn't choose to serve the Dark Lord in the second war, he would have had to, because the Dark Lord could easily have shredded the lies that let my father preserve his dignity in public. What if someone does that to me?_

_What if Harry leaves me?_

"I think I understand."

Draco sneaked a glance into Harry's eyes. Harry didn't look _happy_, but neither did he look condemning.

"You don't want to be subject to your father," Harry said. "Or another Voldemort, or anyone else. You need to have your freedom because it was denied to you for so long. Of course you would fight to protect it, and be suspicious of anything that looked as if it might deprive you of it."

Draco hesitated. That was a perception that made sense, that resonated with him, and that it would be easier for Harry to accept than the absolute truth.

In the end, though, he couldn't let Harry go on thinking it, because it was also, partially, a lie.

"I want freedom," he said. "But I want power even more, the power to keep that freedom safe and guard it. Do you understand, Harry? I _want _to be strong. I _want _people to fear me. I don't want to be like the Dark Lord, but I wouldn't mind if people walked cautiously through the Ministry corridors when they passed my office and worried about giving me cases that weren't worth my time. And I wish I had your fame. I'd use it differently."

Harry was silent this time, tracing a finger over the wood grain of the table, and Draco feared he had gone too far. But he couldn't really regret it. Harry had to _know _him, or the chances that he would leave Draco someday or fall out of love with him were higher. Harry could swear all the promises of eternal faithfulness that he wanted, but Draco wasn't a fool; if _he _did something that weakened the relationship, then their splitting apart would be no one's fault but his.

"Yeah, I can," Harry said at last. Then he looked up with a faint, fierce smile on his face. "But I think you'd feel differently if you had your fame because you were supposed to fight a wizard who was supposedly powerful enough to destroy the world. That's all I'm saying."

Draco nodded, and stood up, moving behind Harry so that he could massage his muscles. It was partially because he could see Harry straining under the tension and partially because that way, he could look away from Harry's face and hide his own relief. "So you'll come with me to the meeting with the War Wizard?"

Harry dropped his head forwards and sighed as Draco's fingers slid beneath his robes and then his shirt. "That feels _good_. Yes, I will. Though I don't know if they'll give us what you want. And I'm perfectly happy training to be an Auror."

"Because I'm here." Draco bent down enough so that his breath could travel across Harry's ear and stir the small hairs that clustered near the base of his earlobe.

"Yes, of course," Harry said, and then arched his neck and gasped. "Draco, _please_."

Draco smugly dragged Harry away from the table and towards the bed. That was one good thing about having an open, honest lover: it let Draco be sure there was something besides Auror training he was good at.

*

"I would prefer it if both of you came to join the War Wizards, of course. We like to preserve the magic of compatible pairs. They're very uncommon."

Harry had once thought that he could feel superior to the Dursleys just by being in the same room with them, especially after he found out he was a wizard. He could look at them and pity them for all the things they didn't know, all the things they wrongly imagined were important. They still had the power to hurt him, and he would get angry about that, but pity was really his strongest emotion for them.

Until now, he hadn't encountered someone who could make him feel _inferior _just by being in the same room with him. But War Wizard Alexander Santoro was that person.

It didn't help that he was tall, and Harry had had to accept by this point in his life that he wasn't going to grow anymore. Santoro also had a narrow, handsome face of the kind that the Dursleys would have called aristocratic, with a high nose that stopped just short of being pointed like Snape's, and dark eyes that Harry knew were judging him, and curly hair so dark that it had a blue sheen to the curls. He wore heavy golden robes that should have looked horrible, but didn't. He had extravagant gestures that should have seemed silly, but didn't.

And Draco was fascinated with him, which shouldn't have made Harry jealous, but did.

"Is there really no way that someone could combine training as a War Wizard and training as an Auror?" Draco was leaning forwards in his chair, eyes and face both blazing the way they did when he was deeply interested in something. Harry usually only saw him wear that look during sex. "Why not? It seems to me that combining the two types of work could provide us with the perfect solution for fighting Nihil."

Santoro smiled. "That wouldn't work," he said. "For many reasons, but since you look unconvinced, I will list a few of them." He linked his fingers together, cracked his knuckles—which made Harry's tongue prickle in irritation—and then began to hold his fingers up as he numbered off his points.

"First," he said, "both programs are intense, and require the student to give all his time to them. You can see why it would be impossible to work in them both at once."

Draco scowled and opened his mouth as if to say that _he _could manage such an exalted feat, but Harry squeezed his hand. And anyway, it didn't matter, since Santoro's voice swept on, like an implacable river. "Second, the student who trains in the Aurors will pick up on many—bad habits, shall we call them? They are not bad from the perspective of an Auror, of course. Many of them are useful and necessary for the carrying out of their ordinary work." Harry wondered if he'd meant to put such a dismissive emphasis on _ordinary_. "But when they come to us, we find that they often have to unlearn half of what they know. That makes the War Wizard training take even longer.

"Third, the War Wizards' knowledge is not for everyone, do you see? Not for public consumption." Santoro spread his hands and shook his head in what Harry thought was mocking sadness, rather than true sorrow. "That means that we have to make many promises, even oaths, when we learn these spells that we will not teach them to others. And that, also, requires supervision and close mentoring before we trust a new trainee with the secret of much of that spells."

"I'd make any oath you like," Draco snapped instantly. Harry thought he understood better now, after Draco had explained to him how much he wanted power, why he sounded desperate. "I'd make a promise not to let anyone else see the spells unless I was going to kill them. Why couldn't I do that?"

"Because we do not want _any_ oath or promise," said Santoro. "We want the ones that are sanctified by our training and proven in wisdom by long experience. And you would not understand why we required such binding words unless you had also been through the training and accepted our premises."

A shiver crept up Harry's spine. It sounded to him as though going into the War Wizards was like entering the Death Eaters. You'd surrender your freedom and your sanity in return for power, and by the time you got it, you probably wouldn't be able to figure out why doing that was a bad idea in the first place.

Draco shook his head. "There must be some way that I can show you I'm trustworthy without going through the training." His fingers were clenching into the table of the small room in the Ministry that Santoro had agreed to meet them in.

Santoro smiled remotely. "I'm sorry. I am not the one who invented these rules. They were put in place many years ago, for what were eminently good and sensible reasons my predecessors held. Perhaps some of those rules could be changed, now that we are in modern times, but it is impossible to be sure that we will not need them in a year's time, particularly with a nightshade about."

Harry started. Perhaps it was only because he was thinking about the deadly nightshade Portillo Lopez carried on her back, but the word had gone off in his ears like a thunderclap. "Is that what you call Nihil?" he asked.

Santoro's eyes turned on him. There was a stillness in them that made Harry shiver. He didn't think that he would like to have this man for a teacher. He made Dearborn look animated. "That is what we call people _like _him," he said, "those who try to raise the dead as servants. Necromancer was once a term of respect, reserved for those who understood the dead and limited their activities with them, and I would like to think it still is. But nightshades are those who increase their own power and pay no attention to the strangling way in which it grows, a deadly poison to others it touches."

Harry nodded, trying to understand, not sure he did. Was that why someone like Portillo Lopez, if she was really part of a secret order of assassins, would wear the plant? But why call people like Nihil by that name if it was a symbol of his enemies?

Draco, who didn't seem to think that what the War Wizards called Nihil was important, broke in again. "And so you won't take us at all unless we give up Auror training and decide to be War Wizards?" he asked.

"Perhaps not even then," said Santoro, with what Harry thought he meant to be a courteous nod but which looked haughty and hateful. "After all, we do not accept all the candidates who present themselves to us. And with a nightshade at large, someone who seems to have learned how to raise the dead so that they can pass as the living, we must be especially careful with new recruits."

Draco stood up, pushing his chair back from the table so harshly it scraped on the floor. "I think we're done here," he said, and turned to the door.

"If you change your mind," Santoro said, rising to his feet, "of course we can speak again. I simply thought that you were owed a personal answer for the number of times you have communicated with us, for the sincerity and depth of your interest."

Draco kept stalking across the room and didn't look back. It was up to Harry to offer an embarrassed shrug to Santoro and hurry after his lover.

"You were rude, you know," he said, by the time he caught up to Draco, almost three corridors away. Draco didn't run, he almost never did unless it was a matter of life and death, but he could walk _fast _when he was angry.

"He didn't give me what I wanted," said Draco, in such a sulky voice that Harry almost expected him to kick the wall.

"Well, do you think he could?" Harry asked. "All the rules he explained to us sounded reasonable."

"There's always a way to be found around the rules, if you try hard enough," Draco said. "Professor Snape used to say that, and he said that Headmaster Dumbledore had taught it to him. And—" He paused, and they walked some way back to their rooms in silence.

"And?" Harry finally prompted, because he thought that was an odd place in the sentence for Draco to have fallen silent.

"My father used to say that," Draco whispered. "Merlin knows that he has plenty of ways for getting around the rules."

Harry inclined his head in what wasn't quite a nod, because he knew it was painful for Draco to speak of Lucius, and stayed silent the rest of the way to their rooms. When they got there, Draco flung himself into a chair with his Stealth and Tracking book and refused to speak, which Harry had to admit was probably the best thing at the moment. Draco found it hard to concentrate in that class, irritated as he constantly was by Coronante's presence, and needed the study time.

Besides, if they had talked longer, Harry didn't know if he would have been able to hide his relief. He didn't _want _to be a War Wizard. He was perfectly satisfied with the way the conversation had turned out, and he would be just as happy if the subject was never mentioned again.

Except that, knowing Draco and the strength of Draco's desires when it came to getting something he wanted, it would be.

*

"Trainee Malfoy."

Draco looked up, wary and hostile. It seemed that all his teachers were intent on finding fault with him today. Morningstar had thought the way he'd learned to block Harry's blows wasn't the proper technique. Ketchum had assigned him an impossible obstacle course and then had the gall to look disappointed when he failed. Davidson had told him that he had a naturally immobile face and would have to find other ways to disguise himself than by constant alterations of expression, as she'd learned how to do. And Coronante had been especially Mudbloodish today, cracking jokes that only half the class laughed at and telling cheerful anecdotes of times that she'd spent in the Muggle world, as if those had any relevance to living as a wizard.

(Draco suspected Mudbloodish wasn't a word. He didn't care).

So, when Lowell came striding towards him across the Partnership Trust classroom and spoke in that tone, Draco said, more sullenly than he would have otherwise, "Yes?"

Lowell paused, looking closely at him, and then, to Draco's shock, smiled. "Yes, I have had days like that myself," he said. "Don't worry. I don't come here to drop another burden in your lap, unless learning more about your compatible magic is a burden."

Draco looked over his shoulder to see if Harry was here to listen to this, but he was on the other side of the room, being talked at by Weston. From the confused, excited look on his face, she was probably saying the same thing her partner was. He turned back to Lowell. "You're offering extra training, sir?"

Lowell nodded. "Yes. Compatible magic is too rare and valuable to allow trainees who have it to flounder about on their own." He looked sour for a moment. "We should have begun tutoring you last year, but several of your instructors felt that you'd already been granted a mark of unusual distinction by being assigned as partners, and didn't want to single you out too much."

_Ketchum, probably, _Draco thought. _It's the kind of thing a Mudblood would do. _"I'll accept, sir," he said firmly. It wasn't like becoming a War Wizard, but it was the second-best thing at the moment.

_At least there's someone who sees that I—and Harry—can be powerful. At least there's someone who wants to train us._

Lowell smiled and nodded to him. It occurred to Draco that occasional pleasantness could be quite as good as the reserve that Dearborn had maintained. "Good, then. We'll see you at seven on Saturday morning, here in the classroom."

Draco watched him move away, and then watched the way that Weston moved in relation to him. They were like dance partners, he thought, classically trained, but they would probably be even better at it than Draco's parents. It was clear, although knowing they had compatible magic helped, that they depended on each other and felt each other's presence in a mystic way, the air throbbing between them like a tugging on strands of an impalpable web.

Then the class began, and Draco settled down to the lesson of how to tell where your partner was at any given moment. This was a class he was good in, and now he had an extra reason not to disappoint the instructors.

*

Harry yawned. The library was spinning around him, the words on the page doing a lazy dance that told him he should have gone to bed hours ago. And he _would _have, except they had training with Lowell and Weston tomorrow, and they tended to spend too much time awake each weekend night anyway, sucking each other off or wanking.

Arousal mixed with the haze of tiredness in Harry's mind, and he gave up research on ancient methods of altering the face as a bad job. He would simply have to come back sometime this weekend. Or add a load of bollocks to the essay and watch Davidson mark him down. It wasn't as though he needed to be good at essays in Concealment, he thought, standing up and slinging his books into the satchel, as long as he was good at the practical aspects of the class.

He threaded his way out between the tables, occupied with many trainees studying and more of them sleeping, and stepped into the corridor. It was quiet this time of night. Some of the trainees made a point of going to sleep early, and others had probably slipped out. Making the wards tighter so Nihil couldn't come in only encouraged the trainees to find more devious ways around them.

Harry's footsteps echoed in the corridor, and his head bobbed to the rhythm of them. Only instinct made him look up when a shadow crossed his path.

The woman in front of him was pale and taking rasping breaths that should have been loud, except Harry could hear nothing. He only knew she was breathing that way because of how her robes moved. She was clad in robes from head to foot, in fact, and the only bare skin was on her face and neck.

He knew her. It was Catherine Arrowshot, the trainee who had shown them the secret meeting place of the trainees corrupted by Nihil and then vanished without trace in the aftermath of the battle there.

Harry drew his wand and flattened his back against the wall. He wondered if Draco was running towards him even now, drawn by the sense that he was in danger.

Arrowshot stretched out her hands. Harry began to chant a spell that would blast her away if she tried to touch him.

But Arrowshot did nothing else other than open her lips and mouth one word, as silent as her breaths. "_Help._"

Then she vanished, and where she had been, there was the smell of dust and burning.


	9. Powerful at Will

Thank you for all the reviews!

_Chapter Nine—Powerful at Will_

Draco skidded to a stop around the corner and stood looking about warily. He had felt the rough prickling on his skin that meant Harry was in trouble, but there was no sign of any trouble in the corridor. He blinked at Harry and waited for an explanation.

Harry lowered his wand, which he'd been pointing at empty air, and swallowed. "I don't know how to explain what happened," he said defensively, when he saw Draco watching him. "It's not that I won't tell you."

_You look like you don't want to tell me, _Draco would have said, but the last thing he wanted was to start an argument. He gave a brisk nod and waited until Harry gathered his breath.

"Catherine Arrowshot appeared in front of me," Harry said. His words were soft and blurred, but Draco heard them well enough. "She looked like a ghost, or a silent picture on the telly—I could see her, but I couldn't hear her." Draco, to whom the Muggle reference had meant nothing, nodded, grateful that Harry had explained it in more detail. "She held out her hands, and I think she asked me for help. I couldn't hear her, so I'm really not sure. Then she vanished, and—well, did you smell that scent when you came up?"

Draco turned obediently in the direction Harry was pointing and sniffed. Then he shook his head. "What was it?"

"Dust," Harry said. "And fire. Or maybe ashes."

Draco narrowed his eyes, trying to remember if he'd ever heard of those smells associated with necromancy. In the end he had to shake his head again. "Do you think she was a trick?" he asked. "An illusion? Or was that really her?"

"I'm not sure," Harry said. "That's the frustrating thing." He touched his forehead, and Draco realized he was rubbing his scar. Before he could ask if it hurt, Harry caught his glance. "Oh, it's fine," he said, with a dismissive wave. "But I'm tired of mysterious things like this happening. I want _answers._"

Draco took a step forwards and embraced him. "So do I," he whispered. "But we have to wait. Be patient. Think about the way that Lowell and Weston are going to teach us in the morning, and what we might learn then." He didn't bother to conceal the hunger in his voice. In the absence of powerful spells from the War Wizards, he wanted to learn tricks based on their compatible magic that would give them an edge.

"Oh, don't remind me," Harry said, with a small groan. "Seven on a Saturday morning. What possessed us to agree to this?"

"We're young," Draco said, dragging Harry down the corridor towards their rooms now. He didn't hear anyone coming, but if Arrowshot or Nihil really had broken through the wards, the Aurors might have felt it and investigate. Draco planned to tell them in the morning. For now, though, he thought he and Harry had had enough of being near the site of Dark magic, and he didn't want an extensive questioning session. "We'll recover."

"It doesn't feel like it," Harry whinged, leaning his shoulder on Draco's shoulder and making Draco support most of his weight.

"Are you hurt at all?" Draco ran a soothing hand up the middle of Harry's spine, half-concerned, half-amused. It wasn't often that Harry would consent to act like a petulant child and show that he wanted to be taken care of.

"No," Harry said, and then pulled away from Draco and began to walk on his own, as if the question had offended him.

Draco sighed. There were times when he wondered if he and Harry would ever work well together, would ever mesh.

Then he told himself not to be stupid, and not just because the question sounded so much like one his father would ask. One slight misunderstanding, or even a different interpretation of the same words, didn't mean they couldn't be lovers. Plenty of other people would adopt a defeatist attitude for them. Draco didn't want to take it up himself.

"Come on to bed," he said, and stroked Harry's hair in a way that made Harry smile at him again.

*

"The first thing you need to remember," Lowell said, "is never to use too much of your strength. It might seem as if you have a virtually unlimited reservoir, because the compatible magic amplifies your power. Even more, it gives you the _feeling _of greater strength."

"But that's not true," said Weston, and her eyes were dark with a memory that Harry was sure was her own, rather than something she had only observed. "_Never _forget that. It will hamper you needlessly if you do." She tossed her wand into the air, spinning it. When it came down, Lowell caught it. Harry blinked. He hadn't even noticed him reaching over for it; he had assumed without thinking that Weston would make it come back to her, and watched her hands.

"I used a bit of magic there," Lowell said, as he did the same thing with his wand and Weston caught it. "Did you feel it?"

"No, sir," Harry said, and Draco said the same thing, then continued eagerly, "Was it magic that made your hand move faster?"

Weston smiled. "The wand wasn't falling that fast," she said. "I've had no need to develop a technique that would let me throw it like a juggler." She looked at Lowell and seemed to see something in his face that let her know he wanted to continue, because she fell silent and he took over smoothly.

"No," Lowell said. "I used the magic to know where her hands were when she tossed the wand, and where it would come down. I could do that because I'm linked to her by compatible magic, because I've trained with her for such a long time, and because we're linked to each other's wands."

Harry heard Draco's breath catch. He blinked, and hoped he didn't look stupid. It was obvious what Lowell was saying, of course—though Harry wondered how they'd achieved such a link—but he had never thought about it.

_I should have. I've used Draco's wand before, after all._

"We've worked with each other for years," Weston said. "I can use my wand, or his. He can do the same. It makes no difference, although we have both different woods and different cores. The wands chose us, yes," she continued quickly, as if this was an objection she'd dealt with before. "But when a pair becomes linked by compatible magic, the wands, in essence, choose both of them."

"No one mentioned anything like this last year," Draco whispered in a longing voice, his eyes traveling back and forth between Lowell and Weston as if he could make the links they were talking about become visible.

"It's not a trick most Aurors know," Lowell said.

"Or would try," Weston added. "After all, most Aurors are comfortable with their wands and quite picky about those who touch them. Oh, we might pick up a comrade's wand in desperation if they had fallen and our own had been snapped, but it's not a battle technique that makes sense for more ordinary wizards."

Draco preened. Harry smiled. _He really loves being called special and extraordinary. I'll have to remember that if I compliment him._

"There are other things we can do with an exchange of wands," Lowell said. "Today, we'll show you just one. It may look effortless, but remember the length of practice we've had."

Draco nodded impatiently. Harry bit down on his lip to stifle a laugh. He suspected that, in this case, _he _would be the one who remembered better than Draco did, simply because Draco was intent on acquiring the power and doing something wonderful as soon as he could.

Lowell and Weston fell back a few steps and faced each other. For a moment, they appeared to communicate with each other using eyes alone, and Harry's amusement changed into respect.

Harry wondered if they were going to duel each other—he'd thought their compatible magic wouldn't let them do that—but instead, they conjured a line of dummies halfway between them. Harry almost swallowed his tongue. The dummies were more human than any he had ever seen, so human that he winced when Weston aimed Lowell's wand and spoke the Blasting Curse. But the body that blew apart collapsed into splinters of wood as it flew, and Harry relaxed. _Not real after all, then._

Lowell strode after her, and his voice was never less than a second behind hers. Dummies snapped and sang; Harry had to duck more than once as bits flew past his ear. He kept his eyes mostly on Lowell and Weston, though, and noticed what they had been trying to teach everyone to notice in the most recent Partnership Trust class: the way they _moved_.

They were in tune with one another. It was a dance. They surged and soared around each other, not in circles, but in wide, swinging half-circles, and there was never a chance that the bits of the latest dummy would hit their partner. Nor were they ever in the way of each other's spells, though since they were hitting the same line from opposite sides, Harry didn't quite see how they avoided it.

It wasn't just coincidence, either. Once, Weston aimed a spell at a dummy's head, which happened to be on the same level as Lowell. He ducked smoothly, though Weston didn't shout a warning, and rose up again to turn a dummy on the other side of her to slag. No pause, and no anxiety, and no need for either. Harry hadn't known that human beings were capable of such grace.

Draco was breathing fast. Harry glanced at him and smiled. "That could be us out there, someday," he said.

"Yes," Draco whispered.

Harry grinned. He was starting to understand why Draco seemed to find power for its own sake exhilarating. Harry could imagine the way that he and Draco could defend innocent people, if they could learn the things that Lowell and Weston were trying to teach them well enough. Power was good, if you could _use _it for something.

And if you looked good while you were doing it, so you could impress people and they wouldn't try to come after you, that was nice, too.

Lowell and Weston finished with the line of dummies and turned to face Harry and Draco. They tossed their wands in the air and exchanged them again, and Weston, who wasn't even breathing hard, nodded to them. "You try it. No exchange of wands, but conjure dummies and avoid each other's spells."

Draco, for the first time since they had come into the room, seemed hesitant. "But you haven't shown us what to do," he said at last, eyes traveling back and forth between Lowell and Weston as if he thought there were magic words they'd spoken that he hadn't heard.

"You learn by doing," Lowell said gently. "You know that it's possible, now. You've seen us in action. What you need to do is try and extend your awareness to your partner. You know where your hand is at all times. Try and make sure that you know where your partner's body is at all times, in the same way." He smiled, probably because Draco continued to look uncertain. "The others will have to learn the same things, but it will take them weeks. You should learn faster, because you have a natural advantage."

_That's the way to get Draco interested in what you're offering, _Harry thought wryly as he trotted into the middle of the room with a suddenly beaming and straight-shouldered Draco.

Harry created his own line of dummies, which he knew didn't look half as good Weston and Lowell's had done. He sneaked a glance at them over his shoulder, but encountered only cool, judging faces, not the disapproval he'd half-expected.

_All right, _Harry thought as he turned back and saw Draco from the corner of his eye. _Extend your awareness to your partner. Right._

He thought of the way he'd seen Draco moving when they dueled with people in Dearborn's class last year, and how Draco sprawled loosely over the bed when he'd shared it with Harry during the summer, and the sharp motions he made when he was displeased, striding around and tugging on his hair—a bad habit he had picked up from Harry, though he wouldn't admit having acquired it—

A shadowy picture began to form in his mind. It swam like a mirage, and when Harry focused too hard on it, it vanished. Plus, Draco had begun to move up the line, destroying the dummies, and Harry was lagging behind. He had to spare _some _attention for his spells.

He chose the simplest ones, the ones he had known well by the fourth year of Defense at Hogwarts. Yeah, they wouldn't be showy, but they would let him cause some damage and yet keep reaching towards that awareness that flickered and faded and darted around his head like a bird caught in a net.

It was difficult. One moment he was almost-seeing, almost-feeling Draco, and the next moment he had to roll on the ground because he'd misjudged where Draco was casting a spell and stepped in the way. He managed to avoid hitting Draco with any of his own spells, but that was as much down to Draco's speed and agility as anything else. He grew increasingly frustrated, and one of his curses didn't even blow the head off the dummy that he was aiming at.

"That's enough, I think," Weston said abruptly, before they had finished. She stepped between them and looked at them both with such an extreme lack of expression that Harry couldn't tell what she was thinking. "Shall I tell you what your weaknesses are?"

"What, not our strengths?" Draco pushed his hair out of his eyes and glared at her.

"You know what your strengths are," Weston said, and something about the way she twisted the words made Draco flush and lower his eyes. Harry frowned at him, deciding to talk to him when they got back to their rooms. Draco seemed tense and unhappy most of the time lately, and Harry didn't know why, because as far as he knew, Draco was keeping up in the classes and understanding most of them. "Your weaknesses take more mastery."

Lowell moved up beside her. "Yes," he said. "And more clarity of sight to spot, which I think is something you haven't much practiced." He turned to Harry. "Your frustration and your anger impede your progress. You know you aren't perfect, but you want to be. Don't forget that this is the reason you go through training in the first place. If we could all do it right the first time, we wouldn't need teachers." He offered a small smile.

Harry nodded shortly. He wanted to comment, but he was panting, and it would probably make his words sound stupid.

"And you," Weston said to Draco, tone as detached as Harry had sometimes heard Portillo Lopez use when she was telling them in Battle Healing last year that the way they were dressing a wound would have killed the person they were inflicting the bandages on, "are too self-centered. Trainee Potter was aiming his spells past you, the beginning steps of the awareness that we told you about, but you nearly hit him more than once."

Harry blinked. "I was doing that?" he asked. "But I couldn't make my image of Draco come clear in my head."

"An image?" Lowell lifted his eyebrows. "That is part of the problem, then. Try to _feel _your partner, trainee, rather than see him. It is more a muscle memory than an image."

Harry felt his face flush and avoided Draco's gaze, or Lowell's, or Weston's. He _did _have muscle memories of Draco, but they came from a source that he thought Lowell and Weston would hardly consider appropriate.

"I can do that," he mumbled, when he realized that Lowell seemed to be waiting for an answer. "I think."

"All we ask is that you try," Lowell said, and turned back to Draco. "In the meantime, continue to work on your awareness of your partner, extend it when you can, and try to avoid hitting him with your spells."

Draco gave a single nod. His face was tight all over, and he headed for the door as though he had to get out of there this instant. Harry gave a hasty bow to Lowell and Weston, and then ran after them.

"Are you all right?" he asked, when he'd shut the door of the training room behind them.

"They called me _self-centered_," Draco said, and continued walking at a pace that made Harry huff to keep up with him. Most of the time, it wouldn't have, Harry thought defensively, but most of the time wasn't after a lot of dodging and spellcasting. "When I've spent all these months training to become an Auror who'll protect the wizarding world from danger, and fighting Nihil, and learning to be your friend and partner and lover. _Self-centered._"

Harry winced. He wasn't about to say it, but he thought the accusation had stung Draco so much because it had a lot of truth, at least for Draco's past self. "They probably don't know as much about that as they should," he said calmly. "After all, the other trainees are also volunteering to be Aurors, and they know you're my partner, but not my lover."

Draco threw him a swift glance. "So you want to tell everyone?"

Harry blinked, caught off-guard by the accusatory tone in Draco's voice. It made things worse that he didn't know whether Draco _wanted _to tell other people or not. "Yes," he said at last. "I do want to. Would you?"

"I don't know," Draco snapped in a kind of dismal triumph, and paced on.

Harry followed him, wondering what he could do to make Draco feel better. He wished he could soothe his worries somehow, but there were so many real things to worry about. He wished he could be completely supportive, but their training involved him as well as Draco; he couldn't stand off to one side and just cheer Draco on. He had to work with him.

_So work with him, _he decided. _Help him with his spells, and work on the weaknesses that Lowell and Weston pointed out to you, and comfort and help Draco if you know that he's having trouble with one specific thing._

That calmed him, and he followed Draco into their rooms and pretended not to notice when Draco slammed the door and threw a book across the room, before closing his eyes and, apparently, trying to meditate. The only thing he could do right now was his best, and more if Draco needed him.

*

_Self-centered._

The word burned in Draco's memory no matter how much he tried to think of something else.

It didn't help that reporting Arrowshot's appearance to the Fellowship had resulted in bafflement, but no leads. Granger had immediately dived into research, but even she could learn nothing about a spell that would have penetrated the wards like that without leaving any trace except a smell of fire and dust. Ketchum frowned and shook his head and had no leads. Jones, of course, was flustered and no help at all. Portillo Lopez and Pushkin kept their own counsels.

Harry did suggest, after the meeting was over, that they keep a slightly closer eye on Portillo Lopez, since she had that symbol on her skin that none of them recognized. Granger nodded thoughtfully.

"I have her for Advanced Battle Healing," she said. "I could see if she responds in any unexpected way to the news of any attacks Nihil makes."

But so far there _had _been no attacks, and so the only thing to emerge out of that conversation was a reminder for Draco that Granger was taking more classes than he was, and at least one harder one, and excelling in them all.

No matter where he turned, he came up against limits. The War Wizards wouldn't take him on. None of his instructors recognized how brilliant he already was, and ultimately—this was the painful thing Draco had to admit to himself—neither did Harry. He was ready enough to praise and compliment Draco, but most of the time, he didn't know enough about the things he was complimenting to know what expertise in them looked like. He plodded his way through Concealment and Disguise, Stealth and Tracking, and all the rest of them, doing better in the practical parts of the classes than the written work. He could admire Draco's essays, but he didn't get the subtle arguments that Draco constructed, or the way that the transitions between paragraphs flowed into one another.

The compatible magic training with Lowell and Weston wasn't what Draco had hoped it would be. He _knew _that his and Harry's magic was stronger than theirs, but still, they couldn't do what Lowell and Weston managed as smoothly as flowing water. The Aurors, of course, smiled and said they needed more practice.

_Will practice keep me safe against my father's next attempt to ruin my life? _Draco thought as he lay awake at night and stared up at the ceiling. _Will it make me feared and respected so much that no one will ever dare to attack me and Harry the way they have so far? Will it hold Nihil back, or get revenge for Dearborn? No, and no, and no. Only power will._

And Harry couldn't understand that either, because he was the least ambitious person Draco had ever known. Even Granger wanted to succeed more often, to be better than she was. Harry seemed to assume he had already done the best he could, and put up with other people's criticism of him more cheerfully than Draco remembered him doing even last year.

In desperation, Draco finally turned to a source of power he thought underexplored. Nihil and Dearborn, in their battle last term, had used Greek magic. Draco had recognized the language but not the incantations. They had had enormously strong effects. Why shouldn't he find spells like that and practice them? In the end, it would be a benefit to Harry, because Draco could teach him those spells, and the Auror program, which would have stronger trainees.

He left Harry sleeping one Sunday morning in bed and slipped off to the library. He knew there were books on Greek magic. Perhaps they would be tucked into inaccessible corners, but there were no corners of the trainees' library like the Restricted Section at Hogwarts; the Aurors had been wise enough not to select books for it that no one could _read. _There were just sections that no one took the trouble to investigate.

_Except people like me, who need to be the best, _Draco thought, as he slipped around corners and down corridors that were silent because people were still sleeping. Lazy people, who couldn't be bothered to study.

Content people, who didn't have Draco's desperate need to protect himself.

He sighed and stopped to shut his eyes and put one hand on the wall. He should be able to control himself better than this. His father hadn't threatened him since the summer. He had a partner who was wonderful, he could admit that, and very much in love with him. Why did he need power so much?

The answer came to him at once, like most of the answers to questions he hadn't wanted to ask.

_Because I don't know what I am yet. I'm still changing, and that's not comfortable. I want to _be _something. I don't want to _become _it._

Draco hissed and opened his eyes, staring up the corridor in irritation. If he had to have one more stupid, simplistic thought like that one—

The walls began to shake, and a hungry roar rang through the Ministry.


	10. A Trembling in the Bones

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Ten—A Trembling in the Bones_

Harry sat up in bed, feeling as though someone had plucked a bowstring attached to his feet. He was gasping, and he bent down and rubbed absently at his feet before his mind caught up with his body.

The pinch had come from his side, from the area where Dearborn had told Draco he would feel it when Harry was in trouble.

Harry flung back the blankets and leaped to his feet. He would have bolted out the door of their rooms first thing, but there was the small matter of robes that he had to put on. He jerked and tugged, and cursed when one of his legs tangled in the robe and nearly sent him crashing to the ground.

After what seemed like far too long, the buttons were done enough that the robes wouldn't fall off him, and Harry dashed to the door, snatching up his wand on the way. He could feel a stirring, and then Flash was flying after him, wings spread and neck extended and eyes so brilliant that Harry found it difficult to look at him.

Politesse was already waiting by the door, scratching and whining and swinging his scorpion tail so fast that Harry leaped to avoid it. He opened the door, and Politesse at once bounded into the corridor, small legs scrambling as he turned. Harry followed him. The pinch in his side would lead him to Draco, sure, but he thought Politesse was more likely to find a safe route.

Out in the corridors, he could hear people shouting and swearing, and a steady, hungry roar rising like the call of a hunting horn. The walls seemed to vibrate, and once the floors buckled. Harry, eyes on Politesse, had already jumped; Politesse had leaped in the air a moment before the wave that rippled the floor hit.

Harry had once heard that dogs and cats could sense earthquakes. It made sense that a magical dog could sense a magical change in the environment.

Flash suddenly settled on his shoulder, so heavily that Harry staggered and leaned to the side. He slid down next to the wall, struggling with the pressure of Flash's claws, his turning head, his madly beating wings. "Ger_off_," he muttered, pushing at the base of Flash's tail, then squeezing it because he thought it might make him fly up.

Flash bared his teeth and didn't respond. Instead, he growled, a rumble that went through one of Harry's ears and came out the other.

Harry froze. Ahead of him, Politesse had paused with one foot in the air and his head thrust forwards, lips pulled back from his teeth and a tiny snarl working its way out of his throat. Harry lifted his wand and pointed it at the corner.

The thing that came around it walked softly; Harry would have had no chance of hearing it if he'd been running. It looked like a large bird at first, or so Harry thought, but it had no feathers. The brown-red skin was smooth, without hair either, and its wings were so short and stubby that there was no way it could have flown. It turned its head towards Harry, and parted its jaws. They were covered with teeth. It flipped its wings forwards, and Harry saw claws on the edges of them, and cutting membranes of skin. The large, chicken-like feet it worked on had long curving toenails, and Harry could imagine what would happen if they got caught in his belly or his chest all too well.

It lunged at him, moving so lightly that Harry wasn't ready for it when it landed in front of him.

Luckily, Politesse and Flash had decided to take over at that point.

Politesse crouched in place as the beast stepped over him, then leaped up and seized the stubby, featherless tail. His jaws crunched down, and his tail curved over his head and lashed down to bury the stinger in the middle of the creature's back.

The creature craned its neck sideways and tried to reach Politesse. All that happened was that it turned in place.

Then Flash hit it from the other side, digging his fangs and claws into the swan-like neck. The thing gave a faint, thin cry like a teakettle boiling without much steam.

By then, Harry was ready.

He stood up, and aimed his wand at the floor beneath the thing's feet. For all he knew, it might be immune to magic. He thought it was one of Nemo's beasts, and breeding in an immunity to spells was something he would do. "_Ramenti_!" he shouted.

The floor burst up in a wave of stone and chips of stone, and Harry hastily raised a shield in front of himself. Politesse was dodging, Flash looping in circles to avoid the worst of it. The beast was caught in the middle of it, lifted off its feet, and dashed against the ceiling and then against the far wall. Its neck broke, and it sagged in place, tail smashed beneath it, wings dangling in front of it.

Harry grinned briefly, then lifted his arm. Flash landed on his shoulder and coiled his tail firmly around Harry's neck. He was chattering, his tongue lashing hungrily at the air, the spikes around his neck bristling out in a stiff mane. Harry stroked his tail once and nodded his thanks to Politesse before following the tug towards Draco again.

*

"Where's Harry?"

"Still in bed, for all I know!" Draco pressed his back against Granger's and flicked out a few testing spells towards the tiny, purple, bat-like creatures flying beneath the ceiling. He utterly failed to affect them, as he had expected. The creatures themselves weren't much of a problem; they could make people duck and be annoyed, but they couldn't score your cheeks or rip your eyes out.

It was their delaying tactics that worried Draco. Almost certainly, the creatures were working to hold them here so that something worse could find them.

He had run into Granger not long after that initial roar. She had also been out of bed and on her way to the library, no surprise, and she had told him that she thought it must be Nemo and the beasts he bred attacking the Ministry. Draco had agreed with her, but he hadn't cared much. He wanted to get back to Harry and make sure that he was all right, not stand around and theorize about enemies who would show themselves soon enough.

Now, though, they had no choice. They had already driven off a creature that looked like a white lion with a necklace of human heads around its throat, and there were the bats, and there was worse to come. Draco checked that Granger was standing steadily behind him, so that their enemies would find it hard to come between them, and then turned his head to the corner. For the last two minutes, he had thought something was lurking around it.

Yes.

It stepped out now.

Draco found his eyes aching as he tried to focus on it. It was a sharp, silvery, metallic color, its sides swimming with shades and images that didn't actually originate in its hide. Draco thought that it was mirror-like, and the glimpses he could catch of his own face in it were among the things it was reflecting.

Which didn't make it any easier to tell what it _was._

Dragon-shaped, Draco decided at last, seeing the long neck, the parted jaws, the flickering forked tongue. The body, though, was heavier and squat, a horse's or perhaps a pig's, and the tail had a triangle of flesh at the end that Draco watched warily. The triangle was red, and easier to focus on than the constantly changing hide.

"What is it meant to do?" Granger breathed behind him. Draco rolled his eyes. _Naturally, she would want to know something like that when we should concentrate on staying alive._

"I don't know," he said. "But since it's like a dragon, maybe it breathes—"

The creature pulled back its head and released a breath of air across them. Draco found himself raising the Shield Charm instinctively, though he had been wrong and no fire came with the blast of air.

Something worse did.

It was cold. The cold crept into Draco's hands, and he watched the skin whiten and turn wrinkled and than a repulsive-looking purple like the color of the creatures who had delayed them for this one. He felt his eyelids droop and become encrusted with ice. His breath froze in his lungs. His body shuddered once and then stood still.

It would have been painful, but it seemed as though cold consumed the thoughts in his head, too. They slowed and grew grinding, like the crystal gears of a broken clock. Draco swayed in place, and he thought he would shatter if he fell, but the matter didn't seem urgent. There were people who shattered when they fell, and others who didn't, and that was the way it was.

"Malfoy!"

Something was shaking him, but Draco couldn't feel the shaking as much more than clumsy vibrations that worked their way slowly through his body. His shoulder couldn't feel the hand. Or was the hand on his shoulder? Perhaps it was the top of his head, or his foot, or his leg, or his arm, where that hand rested.

"Malfoy!"

Another yell, but the word was dim and distant. He didn't know where it was coming from. He didn't know what it applied to. And he didn't feel cold anymore. That was a great improvement, wasn't it? He could feel the slumber slowly washing over him, and he might have welcomed it with open arms if he could have.

Then something hit him and woke him up.

Draco opened his eyes with a gasp as tingling pain flooded his arms and his hands. He stared, blinking, at the spectacle in front of him, though it took long moments for his eyes to unstick and his thoughts to unfreeze and make sense of it.

Harry was dueling with the dragon-thing in the middle of the corridor, his eyes half-shut. That was probably to keep away the dazzle of its mirrored hide, Draco thought absently. The waving red fin at the end of the tail arched and curved and stabbed at Harry, but he was always where it wasn't.

Fire covered the air between him and the dragon, and the dragon flinched every time the flames brushed it.

Around its head flew a humming blue-green-gold projectile that Draco knew must be Flash. And a growling shape orbited its feet, the right size and shape to be Politesse. Draco would have thought that the dog would be protecting _him_, but perhaps Politesse had assumed that he was safe for now and his first duty was destroying the thing that had hurt Draco.

"Are you all right, Malfoy?" Granger whispered from behind him.

Draco cleared his throat. It was full of ice, but that melted, if slowly, and he could move his tongue. "What—what's happening?"

"Harry cast a spell that hit the dragon from behind," Granger whispered back. Her voice sounded dazed, at least, so Draco wasn't the only one in the corridor who was surprised by this turn of events. "And then I was able to wake you up by melting the ice instead of trying to defend us both from another blast of that cold air." Her voice altered to something very like the scold that Draco's mother might have given him in the same situation. "What in the world were you _doing_, getting in front of me like that? Don't you think I know how to protect myself against something dangerous?"

Draco turned his head to stare at her, as fascinating as the battle was. "I wasn't protecting you!" he complained. "I happened to be in the way when the dragon breathed out, that's all!"

Granger eyed him skeptically, and shook her head. "I'm used to people who think I can't do things as well as they can," she said. "Ron and Harry tended to use me for homework help in school." Bitterness curdled in her voice for a moment, and then was gone. "They know I can cast useful spells. But they think I can't fly and I can't fight. You're starting to do the same thing."

Because trying to argue with something so absurd would only make him more absurd, Draco shut his mouth and turned back to watching the battle. His focus should have stayed there in the first place, but Granger had a talent for drawing people into the fall after her.

Harry's fire, or perhaps the bites that Flash and Politesse had kept delivering, had worn down the dragon-thing's defenses. It drooped, its skin seeming to flow into the walls and floor around it. The red fin of flesh at the end of its tail flapped once, and then fell still.

And then it was gone, reduced to nothing but a tiny, sad puddle of meltwater on the floor. Harry blinked and stared at it, then shook his head and seemed to decide that battling it had wasted enough of his time. He turned around and hurried over to Draco.

"Are you all right?" he asked, reaching a hand out to stroke his cheek. Then he changed his mind and flung his arms around Draco instead.

Draco leaned against him instead of replying. The cold lingered in his bones despite Granger's spell. He could easily have died, and that would have meant leaving Harry behind. He was beginning to realize just how much he didn't want to do that—not for the sake of the War Wizards, not for the sake of power or specialized magic, not for anything.

"He'll live," Granger said in a dark voice. "As long as he doesn't take up the habit that you and Ron have sometimes of thinking I can't do anything on my own."

Draco could feel Harry giving him an inquiring glance. He chose to roll his eyes and not respond, simply burrowing further into the warmth that Harry represented.

"What have you seen?" Granger asked then, brisk, and Draco was glad that she had taken over the task of asking questions.

"Not much," Harry said. Draco felt his hair rustle against his cheek as Harry shook his head. "Most of the people I met along the way were taking shelter in their rooms. I saw a few holes in the walls where some of the beasts must have come through, and I've killed a few." He said that so casually, as if it was something he accomplished every day. Draco must have made some small sound, because Harry stroked the back of his neck absently. "A few people were fighting, but most of the beasts died without much effort. If Nemo and Nihil are attacking the Ministry again, I can't see what the purpose is."

"What if it's to see whether they can get through the wards?" Granger asked. "That would make sense."

"But then the Ministry will strengthen the wards again," Harry said. "So that's a useless thing to learn about the present wards."

Granger fell silent, and Draco wished he could turn around and see the expression on her face. But Harry's warmth was essential to him right now, both because he wanted it and because it seemed to coax the frozen thoughts packed in his head to move.

"What if they wanted to leave something behind?" he muttered. "That fits with the pattern they've established so far. They leave infections in the magical cores of anyone they can. They sent those false Death Eaters infected with grief magic and left them in Ministry custody so that they could spread the grief magic further. Probably," he added. That was a theory of Ketchum's, and Draco didn't believe it completely. "What if they want to leave something behind this time?"

Harry's arms tightened convulsively around him, and Granger gasped. "Of course that's it," she said. "And now I wish we'd paid more attention to where they were going and where the attack seemed to be aiming."

Harry ignored Granger's fretting, which Draco thought was wise, and stepped back, touching Draco on the shoulder and looking him in the eye. "Are you ready to fight?" he asked.

Draco took a deep breath and nodded. More than the cold itself, it was the way it had affected him that had undermined his confidence. He had stood there, and he would have let the dragon have him if Harry and their pets hadn't come along. He hadn't been able to move, defend himself, or make decisions.

He had been powerless.

_I hate that feeling so much, _he thought, as he bent down and scooped up Politesse, who was wagging his tail and dancing in circles in an attempt to get Draco's notice. Politesse promptly climbed onto his shoulder and crouched there. Draco wasn't sure, but he thought he felt a soothing warmth begin to flow from Politesse's paws that washed away some of the cold cramps that remained in his muscles. _Is it any wonder that I'll do almost anything for power? _

_Except betray Harry or leave him behind. _

Draco found his gaze focusing on Harry as they started trotting along the corridors, looking for the beasts' original point of entrance. By now, most of the trainees had gone to ground, and they no longer saw new creatures roaming the corridors. Distant cries and roars told Draco that the Aurors had probably corralled the beasts in a single area and were destroying them one by one.

Harry walked through it all like he was unafraid, though Draco's suggestion might have grotesque consequences. He looked at the walls and nodded and answered questions and asked them when Granger offered her own opinions. He scratched under Flash's chin, and reached back every few minutes to brush a hand over Draco's shoulder. Maybe that was for his own benefit, too, but it had the effect of reassuring Draco that Harry was with him and wouldn't let anything happen to him.

_I need him._

It was something Draco had said to himself before, but this felt like the first time he had believed it.

*

"We don't _know _that's the first hole they came through," Hermione said behind him, almost in a whinging tone.

"Hush," Harry said absently, and bent down to examine the sides of the hole more thoroughly. He knew Hermione was upset partially because she didn't have Ron with her and didn't know where he was. He was probably safe in his rooms or with the Aurors, but Harry could understand her concern. He had run through the corridors until he was united with Draco, after all.

But now he had Draco back, and Flash riding his shoulder with his head turning back and forth as if he were just waiting for another threat to attack Harry, and an interesting theory to explore. He would go with Hermione to search for Ron if she asked him, of course, but she hadn't asked so far. And there was no reason that they couldn't look at the holes in the walls along the way.

Harry couldn't have said why he was so sure they would find some answer there. But the holes did look _strange. _They had partially melted at the edges, but so far they hadn't encountered any of the beasts who breathed fire. And the way they were positioned, it seemed as though the creatures had come into the trainee barracks from further inside the Ministry, rather than from the outside.

_There has to be a reason they entered this way, and there has to be a reason that the holes look melted even though we can't feel heat coming from them._

"Did you find anything?" Draco breathed, leaning over his shoulder so that he could peer at the edges of the hole.

Harry reached back to grip his hand and reassure himself that Draco still existed, then shook his head. "This one looks the same as all the others," he said, and started to straighten.

Something reached through the hole and grabbed him.

Harry hissed in shock and swung his wand around before he thought it, incanting a Severing Charm. It bounced off the thick tentacle that had encircled his leg. Harry had time to see that the tentacle was a swirling purple with a green background before it yanked him straight through the hole.

Hermione and Draco cried out from behind him. Harry tried to respond, but another tentacle wrapped around his head, and then he was involved in trying not to have his face ripped off.

If he couldn't attack them directly, then he would attack what was around them. He aimed in a direction that he hoped would lead to the floor under his feet or the walls, and shouted a Blasting Curse.

Something broke, and someone uttered several words that Harry didn't understand, though they sounded like swearing in another language. The tentacle around his face released him. Harry hopped back to his feet and tried to bolt away, but one of the tentacles was still wrapped around his legs, and he fell.

He was in the smashed wreckage of a room that had probably been part of the trainee barracks originally. Harry wasn't sure how far he had traveled, but he could no longer see the hole he'd come through, and this room was full of slightly waving tentacles and the bits of stone that his spell might have caused to fall.

Then a wizard stepped around the tentacles and confronted him.

Harry had never seen this face before, but he thought it must be Nemo. At the moment, he wore the form of a tall, powerfully-built, dark-haired man, with doubtful grey eyes that considered Harry as if he was a potion gone wrong.

"I don't know why he wants you," he mused. "It's not as though the resources inside you couldn't be found in others. I reckon he's more interested in your body, and the form you'll wear after your transformation." He turned his back, staring into the writhing mass of tentacles as if he was silently communing with it.

Harry hesitated. Nemo was acting awfully unconcerned for someone in the same room with Harry; he hadn't even drawn his wand. Perhaps that meant something horrible would happen the moment Harry tried a spell.

There was a noise like hot water sizzling, and Flash struck from above, driving all twenty claws into Nemo's neck where it joined his shoulder.

Nemo fell, screaming, and the tentacle let go of Harry's leg and lashed about randomly. Maybe the creature didn't know what it was doing without commands, Harry thought, heart pounding as he scrambled up. He aimed his wand at Nemo's feet and spoke the charm that Roger Aran had taught them the other day in his calmest, clearest voice. "_Scaurus!_"

Nemo cried out again as his ankles swelled up to large, puffy cartoons of themselves, and then the spell swept over his legs, effectively disabling him. Harry used a Stunner on him before he could recover, and Nemo fell with his mouth gaping.

The tentacles went quiet immediately.

Harry held out his arm and said, "Come to me, Flash."

Flash eyed him sideways, stared at the quiet and bleeding body he still had his claws embedded in, and then pulled them out and flew to Harry's shoulder. He rubbed his head against Harry's chin, then began to delicately lick his claws. Harry shook his head and cast the Patronus that would summon help.

Then he sat down, wrapped his arms around his legs, and studied Nemo in silence for a long time, until Draco was beside him with his arms around him and Hermione was whispering in his ear and he could make himself realize he'd just captured one of their major enemies.


	11. Open Doors

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Eleven—Open Doors_

"Lie still, Trainee Potter."

Harry rolled his eyes when he was sure Portillo Lopez's back was turned. He no longer had her in class, sure, but she was as bossy as she had ever been. She had already run several scanning and diagnostic charms on him, even though Harry had used them himself and they'd told him nothing was wrong with him. His arms ached a bit from holding his muscles constantly bunched with tension, and his leg where the tentacles had grabbed him and yanked him through the hole in the wall, but that was all. He would live. Well, maybe a pain potion and then he would live.

"I saw that, Trainee Potter."

Trying to fight the impulse to fold his arms and sulk like a child, Harry leaned back against the pillows on the bed and looked around. Now that he knew what the tattoo on Portillo Lopez's back meant, he was wondering if anything in her office would look different. It didn't, though. There were still racks of potions he didn't understand, and closed cabinets with the slight shimmer that told of powerful locking spells, and the bed that he had spent far too much time in, both this year and last.

Portillo Lopez had even driven Draco out of the room, and she'd never done that before. Harry bit his lip and wondered if there _was _something wrong with him, something severe she hadn't told him about.

But they'd been alone for twenty minutes. Why not tell him now?

Then he grimaced and shook his head. Maybe it was so bad she needed to prepare for the telling.

"Trainee Potter."

He looked up. Portillo Lopez leaned against one of the cabinets, staring at him. Harry blinked at her in confusion. The scarf she usually wore over her hair was present, as usual. Her robes were neatly pressed and without a crease or spot of dust. Her eyes were direct. The main difference was her cold expression, which he had never seen before.

"Battle Healer?" he asked, since he didn't think he should call her _assassin_, even if that was what the tattoo on her skin meant.

Portillo Lopez came a step nearer. Her wand was in her hand. Harry wondered if it had always been there, or if she had drawn it since he last looked. Her voice was so quiet it took him long moments to sort out the words. "Would you mind telling me how long you have been practicing necromancy?"

Harry dug his fingers into the blankets of the bed to keep from panicking, and reminded himself fiercely that she probably had some kind of special sense or spell that would let her find these things out. She hadn't told anyone else. That was the important thing. Harry thought he could avoid regular contact with Portillo Lopez, but it would be horrible if Draco, Hermione, or Ron found out.

"I don't know what you mean," he said. "I've been reading about it, but that's not the same thing."

"No one stinks of Dark and Dead magic like you do who hasn't done at least one ritual," Portillo Lopez said. She didn't raise her voice. She didn't seem to feel the need to. Harry _did _wish she would look away, because until she did, he didn't think he could move his eyes. "Tell me. What do you hope to accomplish with it? There are better ways to challenge Nihil."

Harry wanted to lick his lips, but he wondered if that would make him look weak to her. Then he wondered why he was worrying about looking weak, when he had so many other things to worry about, and gathered the courage to say, "I want to bring the dead back to life. Why else would you do necromancy?"

"To gather power," Portillo Lopez said. Still no change in her voice or her stance. Harry thought there were some of the dead around who were probably livelier than she was. "That is one of the major reasons that wizards practice the Dark Arts, and make no mistake, necromancy is among those." She paused, then added, "This is something like the Cruciatus Curse, Trainee Potter, do you understand? There is _no_ way to adapt it to goodness or the purposes of goodness. The dead are always wrenched from their rest unwillingly, and brought back to life as, at the very best, slaves who know they are slaves and resent it. I am not sure who told you that you could accomplish good things this way, but—"

"Nobody did that," Harry snapped, because the last thing he wanted was for one of his friends or Draco to get in trouble. "I thought of it on my own."

Portillo Lopez watched him and said nothing.

"So many people died during the war," Harry said. He had to at least _try _to explain. And he wanted to do that for more than one reason. He'd been falling behind in his necromancy studies lately, with so many other things to do for his classes. Maybe he could inspire himself to take it up again if he reminded his mind of what he was fighting for. "They didn't get a chance to live. They left orphans behind. Or they suffered while they were alive, and their deaths were only the last thing that happened to them, not the worst. I want to give them that second chance. They should have had it, and no one else is going to give it to them."

Portillo Lopez smiled. The smile had old sadness in it, and Harry thought he could have asked what she knew about necromancy, and why she dedicated herself to fighting it so strongly. But he didn't really want to. He knew exactly what kind of speech she was going to make, and he had to concentrate on stuffing his ears with straw.

"Many people have that fantasy," she said. "But it is only a fantasy. One cannot manage anything like that, Trainee Potter. The people who come back from the dead would be bound to _you_, and they would do only as you liked them to. If that was a parody of life, that is what would happen, but they would not be able to make any real choices. They would only make the ones that you chose for them."

Harry shook his head. "I wouldn't ever want them to suffer," he said. "I would choose for them to live free and independent lives, apart from me."

"But that is the one choice you cannot make," Portillo Lopez said.

Harry glared at her. "You just said they would do whatever I ordered them to."

"But you cannot order someone to be free," Portillo Lopez said, with iron patience, "just as you cannot make someone live by killing him. That is the point I am trying to put across to you, and which you seem to be ignoring. You would achieve parody, and that only, not truth."

"_You _say that," Harry said. "But most people want to be necromancers because they like the power. Going into it with different intentions ought to make a difference."

Portillo Lopez's mouth twitched. "It does not," she said. "That only makes it worse in some senses, because the person is so convinced that they are doing right that they will not listen to reason." She looked pointedly at Harry.

Harry shook his head. "There isn't any other _choice_," he said. "Don't you see? Without me, they aren't going to get to live another life, because no one else will try to give them one."

"Perhaps," Portillo Lopez whispered, "you should accept the verdict of time and fate and nature, and concentrate on living your own life in a way that will make them proud of you."

Harry snorted. "They didn't die so I could make them proud. They died for other reasons. And I wouldn't care if they hated me when they were alive again. At least that means they would have a chance to feel _something._"

"I believe it does not matter what I say," Portillo Lopez said. "You have made up your mind, and you have chosen the view of things that places me on a villain's side of the line. Very well. Then I have no choice but to tell the truth to those I think can restrain you."

Harry lifted his head. "Even if I was kicked out of the Aurors, that wouldn't keep me from practicing necromancy." The back of his throat was dry, and his head was buzzing. He felt as though he was detached from everything happening around him. He could make grand pronouncements and mean them, because that was better than thinking about what would happen if he gave up his promise to bring people back from the dead.

Portillo Lopez gave him another quietly amused glance. "I did not teach you for a year without learning how little you care for official authority. I meant your friends and your partner. I hardly think they will stand for this."

Harry felt as though someone had reached into his chest, grasped his heart, and begun to rend off pieces of it. Yes, Draco would be angry at him. And so would Hermione, and Ron. They might not yell at him, but they would do something worse. They would search his books until they found the one about necromancy and take it away. And then they would keep a sharp eye out for the black candles, the salt, and other things Harry needed to buy to do the rituals, and take them away when they found them. Harry had been able to do that first ritual only because no one knew he was doing it.

If someone found out…

Portillo Lopez was using knowledge to force him into doing what she wanted. The only thing Harry could do was use knowledge back, so that she would do what _he _wanted.

"I know what you really are," he said.

Portillo Lopez paused and glanced back at him in puzzlement. "What do you mean? If you are going to call me a bitch or any other name, I quite assure you, Trainee Potter, I have heard the insult before and can resist it."

"I mean," Harry said, and clenched his hands together to stop them from shaking, "I know that you have a symbol on your skin like a wheel covered with deadly nightshade, and I know that that means you're an assassin who hunts necromancers and the living dead. And you must want to hide it, or you would wear the tattoo openly. So I'll tell people if you tell them about my necromancy."

Portillo Lopez's face turned grey. Then she said, "You _stupid _child. You have not the least idea of what harm you might cause by releasing that information."

"I think I do," Harry countered. He felt a little calmer, now that he saw her responding to the threat. If she hadn't, or had laughed, he wasn't sure what he would have done. "As much idea as you have of what you'll do if you stop me from bringing back the dead."

"I've seen a hundred of you," Portillo Lopez said with cool contempt. "You always think your necromancy is somehow different, as though you've learned something new, unprecedented in thousands of years of experiments. But you know nothing about me, and nothing about what oaths you transgress in exposing me."

"They're not my oaths," Harry said. "And that's all I care about."

Portillo Lopez closed her eyes and stood there as if in silent communion with someone or something. Harry hoped she _was _contacting her superiors, whoever they were, and asking for help. They would probably tell her to leave him alone, that someone who had performed one necromantic ritual was too small to be worth bothering about.

_She has to think that, _Harry thought, jamming his hands together. _I'm not important. I'm not really the Boy-Who-Lived anymore, just one Auror trainee among the rest. Why should she care if I condemn myself to death or whatever she thinks will happen as a result of this?_

When she looked at him again, her eyes were black with hatred, and Harry shrank back against the pillows, but her words were what he wanted to hear. "My oaths are more important than the damage you might do to yourself," she said, and her voice cracked like blocks of stone that someone was breaking with a hammer. "Very well. Drown yourself in darkness, and reach out too late to save your life or sanity."

She whirled away and stalked to the door. When it opened, Harry saw Draco on the other side. He smiled and held out his arms. Draco hurried across the floor and hugged him without glancing once at Portillo Lopez.

_She_ stood there and gave Harry one more burning glance before she disappeared down the corridor. Harry snorted and squeezed Draco tight. "Have they got any information out of Nemo? And is that really Nemo?"

Draco's smile was sly. "Let me take you to where you can hear it for yourself."

*

Harry had a dazed expression when he came out of the Pensieve that Pushkin, who had questioned Nemo, had stored his memories of the interrogation in. He leaned back against the table that the Fellowship—all of them except Portillo Lopez, who had taken herself out of this for some reason—had crowded around and stared at Draco. "Is that true?" he demanded.

"I was right there when he said it," Draco murmured, a bit smugly. He had been worried about Harry and the way that Portillo Lopez was holding him in her office, but when a chance to attend the questioning had popped up, he _had _to take it.

Harry shook his head in wonder. "So that _is_ him. And he's spilling all these details about the caches and the places that Nihil's soldiers are waiting and…" He looked at Pushkin as if he wanted him to continue.

"Yes," Pushkin said in a high voice, tapping his fingers together. His expression barely ever changed, but Draco had learned enough in his Observation class to tell that he was pleased. "He says that he does not know enough about Nihil's plan to give us the complete details, but I am rather inclined to distrust that. And I think I have a much better idea of what that plan was than I did before."

"Well, what is it?" Granger asked. Draco was completely unsurprised that the first question had belonged to her.

"We should have seen it sooner," said Pushkin, and Draco decided that the Observations instructor had a previously unsuspected streak of sadism in his nature that made him put off the announcement for as long as possible. "The names that these people have chosen for themselves. The way that they can apparently die and then return." He paused reflectively. "That is the key to the whole thing, truly."

"_What_?" Granger was bouncing in her chair, Harry holding his breath. Even Weasley looked as if he might explode from impatience. Draco took the time to note smugly that he was holding up much better under the suspense than they were, and then realized his hands were clenched so tightly that his fingers ached. He hastily tucked them out of sight under the table.

"They have discovered a way to truly pass through death," Pushkin said, "and come out on the other side. That is why I do not believe Nihil died when he confronted Auror Dearborn, any more than Nusquam died when we thought you had killed her." He nodded to Draco and Harry. "They have _transformed _themselves, and made death one more change, not the limit of their existence. If they are the living dead themselves, no longer the person or people they were born as, that would make sense."

Draco half-shut his eyes, remembering the information that Harry had received from a nonexistent pure-blood at the Christmas party they had attended. Harry had let him look at a Pensieve memory of that conversation, eventually, and the words echoed in Draco's head like bells now. He wondered that he hadn't noticed them more at the time.

_But if you can ensure that part of you goes through death and survives, so that death is just another kind of transformation, like falling in love or being born or growing up, then it's not terrifying. And if you can _control _that transformation, and where the changed part of you ends up…_

Draco shook his head. He had assumed without thinking that that way of speaking was poetic or a metaphor, not the literal truth.

"But how?" Ketchum asked urgently. "And if we can't kill them, then how in the world can we fight them?"

"And what do they _want_?" Granger asked plaintively. "They haven't tried to sell this secret or set themselves up as people who are superior because of it. They've just attacked and corrupted and raised armies. What are they doing with it?"

"I should have seen and heard it before," Pushkin said, "every time we pronounced their names. Nothing. Nowhere. No one." He turned his hand palm up on the table. "This is only a theory, unsubstantiated by the direct information that I believe I have received from Nemo on the subject. He did not want to tell me anything, of course, but he could not resist bragging and throwing out hints, and so I am more certain of the idea that they have created a way to transform themselves through death. This is speculation."

"We understand that," said Hestia Jones, sounding more impatient than Draco had ever heard her do. "Just get on with it."

Pushkin gave her a long, cool look, but nodded and finally continued. "They have chosen names made of nothingness," he said. "I wish they believe to reduce the world to the same thing. A rag of nothingness, drifting in space."

Draco frowned. "But that doesn't make sense," he said.

Other people were arguing at the same time. "That's ridiculous," Ketchum said, blunter than Draco would have been to someone he respected as much as the Observations professor. Draco rolled his eyes. _That's Mudbloods for you. _"You can't take one fact and turn it into a whole theory."

"They're still creating things," Jones said, pushing her hair out of one eye and looking skeptically at Pushkin. "Soldiers, grief magic, new ways of coming through death if you're right. That would imply they don't want to destroy the whole world."

"Yes, Nihil seems outraged," Granger said, "but outraged enough to destroy the whole world? Really?"

Harry looked thoughtful, and stayed silent. Weasley looked stupid, but he didn't add his voice to the discussion, either, which Draco considered a small mercy.

"I can only tell you what I suspect," Pushkin said calmly. "This is an intuitive theory; I cannot point to the evidence the way I could if it was logical. But I will maintain it in the back of my mind, and search out evidence that might support it."

"Which means that you'll let your conclusion predetermine what you see." Ketchum raised his eyebrows at Pushkin. "We'll investigate this together, and the next interrogation of Nemo should produce more."

Draco nodded in agreement. He hoped he would be able to attend the next interrogation in person as well. Nemo's face and manner hadn't provided him with anything more than what Pushkin had noted, but maybe, now that he knew the profundity of the secrets the man was probably protecting, they would.

Someone hammered on the door. Granger and Jones snatched up their wands, but Ketchum shook his head. "I told some of my trainees where we were meeting," he explained, standing up and moving to the door. "In case they needed to fetch me. They don't know what the meeting is about."

Draco scowled and let his raised hand drop back to his side, but he decided that he would remember Ketchum's tendency to give out information like that without discussing it with the rest of the Fellowship.

Ketchum blocked their vision with his body as he opened the door—though Draco had to admit that could be partially because he didn't want his trainee to see who was there—but they could all hear her voice. It was a sobbing, bleating mess, and Draco thought about that in detail before he heard her words and forgot about other things.

"Sir, Nemo's been murdered in his cell!"

Ketchum cursed and sprinted out the door. He still managed to let it fall shut so that it would block their view, Draco noted. And then the rest of them were on their feet and following, and could hopefully blend with the crowd in the corridors, so it didn't matter.

The crowd was there, shifting back and forth and raising confused voices. Ketchum, Pushkin, and Jones formed into a wedge and cut through the trainees, who fell back automatically when they saw full-fledged Aurors commanding them to do so. Draco ran after them, and hoped that no one would think he was anything other than an interested spectator. God knew what they would think of Weasley, though.

It was two turns and a flight of stairs down to the holding cell, and Draco was panting by the time he got there. He grimaced and put a hand over the place in his side that was aching. _Perhaps I should be training harder, as Morningstar suggested. That little run shouldn't have tired me out._

"Stand back!" Ketchum's voice rang out, and the people milling around the holding cell door, who seemed to include few if any Aurors, fell back in automatic obedience. Harry dogged Ketchum's heels, and Draco stayed close to him. The door stood open, and he could see a long stream of thick, dark blood running out from under it.

That should have prepared him for the sight of the room, but it didn't.

Someone had cut Nemo, or the body Nemo was using, in half, and then scooped out each half like a grapefruit. Draco saw that much, though how he made his mind understand it, he didn't know, given the tangle of organs, flesh, and bones everywhere. He had to turn away then, because the explosions of red on the walls and the sheer _thickness _of everything made him want to vomit, or simply weep from shock.

Harry wrapped his arms around Draco and held him. He was standing curiously still, as if the sight of Nemo dead didn't move him. Or maybe he'd seen enough horrible things during the war that it didn't affect him as much anymore, Draco thought, leaning his head against Harry's shoulder. He would gladly think about the war rather than this, if it was the only way to banish the sight from his mind.

Shouted questions traveled back and forth, and Draco gradually learned what everyone else knew: that no one had seen the person who came into the cell, that Nemo had had no visitors since the official interrogation, and that the monitoring charms that should have detected any change in him hadn't flickered. They wouldn't have known he was dead so soon if the trainee who was supposed to take in food hadn't opened the door.

Draco shuddered. He had to wonder if someone had deliberately come in and killed Nemo so that he could fly to another body, one they wouldn't know the look of. Perhaps Nihil had been angry about his subordinate's failure and his easy capture and had come himself.

_Or perhaps we have another enemy, one even worse, that we don't know about._

*

Harry held Draco, glad that he didn't ask for anything but an embrace right now. Harry's mind was racing so fast that he didn't think he could have replied even if Draco had been asking him questions about the murder.

He was thinking about the fact that, if what Pushkin said was true, Nemo could possibly be classified as one of the living dead.

And that Portillo Lopez's order was sworn to destroy them.

And that Portillo Lopez had been absent from the Fellowship's meeting.


	12. The Lowering Gloom

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Twelve—The Lowering Gloom_

Draco leaned forwards. Pushkin, who had been assigned to investigate the beasts Nemo had left behind on the chance that he could learn something from them, had said he might sit in on the dissection. Harry had shuddered when Draco asked him if he wanted to come and said that he would prefer to spend extra time studying for Concealment.

Draco didn't mind. He was used to cutting things up for potions, after all, and he hardly imagined that the beasts, or slices of their flesh, could smell more disgusting than some of the ingredients he'd dealt with.

So far, Pushkin had examined two skeletons, one of the small bat-like creatures that had circled over Draco's head in the corridor—which had dissolved into a foul-smelling black goo the moment Pushkin had prodded it—and a drop from the puddle of meltwater that was all that was left of the ice-breathing dragon. If any of it had told him anything, he was an expert at keeping it to himself. Instead, he simply nodded after each investigation concluded and then moved onto the next one with admirable calm.

Of course, Draco would have found it more admirable if he'd chosen to share the information.

Now he was beginning on one of the tentacles that had ensnared Harry. The beast had fallen motionless the moment Nemo was captured and had never moved again that Draco knew of, even when its master was murdered. To appearances, the beast was nothing but tentacles hooked to a smooth, round body. It was Pushkin's theory that they might move if he inflicted enough pain on them.

Draco applauded the theory, and had carefully estimated the distance between himself and the door of the small Potions lab as his part of the practice.

Pushkin grunted softly and bore down on the tentacle—its color like a mixture of bile, vomit, and urine—with a sharp knife. Draco tensed. Nothing happened. The knife cut in smoothly, and a slow trickle of thick red blood worked its way out.

Pushkin paused. "Fascinating," he said.

"Sir?" Draco asked, alert as always for something that would let him understand the creature better than Pushkin wanted him to. Knowledge was sometimes a paltry kind of power compared to spells, but he would take what he could get when he could get it.

"This is not exactly blood," Pushkin said. "Nemo has twisted most of the ordinary processes of life as we understand them. I had thought he was crossbreeding creatures, but no magical creature could have blood like this. It would kill its parent when it formed in the womb, and then die itself."

"Is it not really a creature?" Draco asked, voicing something he'd wondered about. "It doesn't have a head or a mouth. Perhaps it's some sort of organic machine?"

He wondered, based on the look that Pushkin gave him, if he was about to be scolded for so Mugglish a notion, but Pushkin simply shook his head and said, "It is alive. That is all I need to know that it is a creature. But I will keep your suggestion in mind." He turned back and cut into the thing again.

Draco shifted uneasily, and wondered if Nemo had left any magical traps behind to ensnare those who might look too closely into his experimental breeding. Even if Pushkin was right and it wasn't quite experimental breeding, that didn't preclude the traps.

Pushkin finally sliced a section of the tentacle free, smeared on its end with that blood that flowed too slowly, and laid it on a table. Other than the creature, Draco, and Pushkin himself, the table was the only large object in the room. Pushkin had a trunk of small knives, pipes, mirrors, and other things that crouched at his feet like an obedient dog.

Draco made himself watch closely, and ignore the smell, as Pushkin cast a quiet spell on the tentacle. Whatever it was, Draco didn't recognize it. It made a sharp yellowish-green light beam from the severed end of the tentacle.

"Yes," Pushkin said. "I thought so."

"What did you think?" Draco asked patiently, trying not to scream. He had once thought that it was hard getting information out of Dearborn or Portillo Lopez. Compared to Pushkin, they were models of clarity.

"This is a spell used to tell the lineage of crossbred magical creatures," Pushkin said, as if such a thing were as ordinary as a spell to clean the dishes. "It is especially useful in cases when the breeding has carried the animal so far from its parents that its similarities to them are superficial. But it did not work this time. As far as the spell is concerned, this beast came from nothing that exists."

Draco swallowed. Pushkin had put a tiny emphasis on the word _nothing _that made Draco remember his claim at the Fellowship meeting: that Nihil, Nemo, and Nusquam wanted nothing more than to reduce the world to dust floating in an abyss.

"But you can't create something from nothing," he said.

Pushkin gave him a quick glance like a whip. "I am aware of that, Trainee Malfoy," he said. "But that is what Nemo appears to have done."

"Couldn't he have just found something sufficiently unusual that the spell doesn't record it?" Draco asked hopefully. The thought of the abyss that they wanted, that this thing might have emerged from, made his forehead sting as if the cold-dragon had breathed on him again.

"This spell is meant to give pointers to the kind of magical creature," Pushkin said, "such as what it might eat or what region of the world it emerged from. That way, even if it is not a familiar breed, the researcher had some solid information to begin from. But according to this spell, its parents ate nothing, they came from nowhere, and no one bred them."

Draco glared at Pushkin's back. He couldn't believe that the English echo of the names of the Terrible Trio wasn't deliberate. "Do you think it's related to the magic that allows them to travel beyond death?" he asked.

Pushkin gave a sudden clucking noise, and snatched up one of his mirrors to examine the bloody end of the tentacle. Draco held his breath, proud that he had apparently given Pushkin a clue, and waiting to be told what the clue was.

"Interesting," Pushkin said at last.

"What?" Draco asked, his heart beating so hard that it felt as if he were swaying on his feet.

"I had a thought," Pushkin said, "but it is not true, and the investigation reveals no way that it could be true." He paused, then added, "Rather like most of my thoughts on Nemo's murder, which may never be solved."

Draco sat down and sighed.

*

Harry gave a quick glance at the circle in the center of the floor, checking to make sure that it perfectly matched the circle sketched in the book. Then he walked around it to be sure, and especially studied the curlicues. The circle was studded with them, and with smaller circles, and with crosses and stars. They all had to be right, and they had been horribly hard to draw.

He focused his mind tightly and exclusively on the difficulty for a minute, so he would be thinking about _that _and not about—other things.

Then he went back, picked up the necromancy book, and began to read again. He had already memorized the instructions because he'd read them so many times, of course. But he needed to read them one more time to convince himself to go through with this.

_Necromancy corresponds to sacrifice, because sacrifice is the strongest magical expression of desires. Someone who yields his life, or his limbs, or the heart of his beloved, is a wizard whose will is strong enough to control the living dead._

Harry swallowed and read on. The first paragraph was the most disturbing, he thought.

So he'd thought more than once, and then always changed that evaluation when he read the next one.

_This ritual calls for one of the smaller sacrifices, one that can be healed afterwards. This is the Calling. The spirits that one wishes to summon back should be made to float near the surface of the Sea, so that they may hear future Calls more clearly and manifest themselves in the bodies that the necromancer has chosen for them._

The book continually called the place where the dead were the Sea. Harry wasn't sure if that was meant to be a mere poetic image or not. He wasn't sure that he wanted to know.

But he knew what he had to do.

He laid the book down. He hesitated, then shut it and placed it aside, out of the way. He had thought to keep it open so he could look at it for instructions during the ritual, but he _had _read the directions too many times, trying to make them sound nicer or less dark in his head. It wouldn't do. He just had to go ahead and perform the bloody ritual, and hope for the best, the way he'd been doing for the past week, since he resumed his interrupted study.

He stepped up to the edge of the circle, stopped with his boots right next to the line, and then backed away from it for a count of three heartbeats. The book had said not to worry about a more precise amount of time or space; tuning the ritual to his own heartbeats was one of the things that would make it _his_ instead of something copied from a dozen other practitioners.

Already Harry thought he could feel a subtle difference in the air. There was a white spark dancing around the edges of the circle, or there was when he didn't turn his head to look for it. There was a dark shimmer near the floor even before he cast the spells that the ritual required at head and foot of the circle, raising fire out of the solid stone.

The fires were blue for the most part, but the hottest flame near their heart alternated between blue and black. Harry wondered what Hermione would say about that, and then firmly put the notion aside. He hadn't come this far to turn back now.

Portillo Lopez's warning sounded in his head then, about how he would go so far that finally there would be no turning back, but he forgot that one as impatiently. He was _here_, that was the point. He had to move forwards and go on acting.

He stood in place for some time; the book had said that he could take as long to relax as he needed to after the fires were lit. Then he moved his head to the side and whispered the incantation the book had given. Harry didn't know what the language was, except that it wasn't Latin. The words felt hard and heavy in his mouth, sharp, like they might cut his tongue.

When his left hand grew heavier, Harry knew it had worked. He still let a count of ten heartbeats, and then ten more, pass before he looked down to see.

He held a knife, as heavy and ugly as the words, with a dull grey hilt and a greyer blade. The blade looked as sharp as a cleaver. Harry didn't turn it over, because you weren't supposed to. He lifted it, his gaze fixed on the circle.

Another incantation, three words in the same language, or at least it sounded like, all clack and hiss, the way Harry thought Parseltongue would probably sound to someone who didn't speak it. Then he brought the knife down.

He cried out despite himself as he chopped off the tip of the smallest finger on his right hand, but he had chosen Catherine Arrowshot's old room—which had never received another occupant—for that reason. It was far away from the rest of the barracks. No one was going to hear him here.

The blood flew in a perfect arch, drawn towards the circle by a magic Harry wouldn't pretend to understand. The fire that was further away from him ate it. The nearer fire ate the tip of his finger.

Harry sank to his knees, his teeth clenched. The pain was debilitating, and he knew that he wouldn't be able to go on with the ritual until he did something to deal with it, although he'd meant to only heal the wound so he wouldn't lose too much blood. But the book hadn't said there was any problem with delaying a portion of the ritual after he'd made the sacrifice, so that was what he'd do.

He touched his wand to his bleeding finger and whispered a Numbing Charm, then a minor Healing Charm that would make the wound close. That didn't do anything about the blood on his palm, of course, or the memory of the pain, which was almost worse than the real thing. But Harry wiped his hand off on the floor and focused his attention on the circle, then whispered the next word. This one wasn't the strange language of the other incantations, or Latin either. It was a single word in English. "_Come._"

The silence in the room grew heavy. Another spark appeared to dart around the circle, this time creating lines of light between the fires and a momentary shimmer that made Harry think a gate of some kind was opening in the circle. He flinched and hoped it wasn't. He didn't have the protections up that the book said he would need against an angry spirit who hadn't been summoned back to take a body.

The sensation and the sight vanished, and Harry saw the image of a grey river flowing through the circle instead. It traveled through a blasted black landscape, set here and there with brilliant white flowers. Harry felt a tiny shiver of longing work its way up his spine. It was strange, with how ugly that country looked, but it conveyed a sensation of rest and peace to him.

A figure walked up to the other side of the stream, and stooped down to gather some of the flowing water in two almost shapeless hands. They might have been paws, for all Harry cared. His gaze was fixed on the figure's face.

Tangled brown hair streaked with grey, and tiredness in the face. He looked worse than Harry would have liked him to look after death, but there he was. Remus Lupin.

"Your life was the most unfair," Harry whispered into the heavy magic he could feel gathering in the air, making the silence as thick as sugar. "You suffered because Greyback decided to bite you, and then you died too early and you never got to know your son, not really. I'm going to bring you back first."

The darkness behind Remus stirred and surged, as if it had heard that promise. Then another figure came forwards to stand at his side.

Harry shut his eyes. It was Sirius, the way he had looked when he fell through the veil, the way Harry had seen him when he summoned his spirit in Grimmauld Place. He looked care-worn, defiant, strange, sad.

"Or maybe your life was the hardest," Harry muttered. "In prison for a crime you didn't do, and then only free for two years before you died, most of which you had to spend in a place you hated. It isn't _right._"

And that was the real reason he was doing this, he thought, the reason Portillo Lopez would never understand. Yes, he wanted to bring the dead back because he wanted to see them again, but really, the injustice was the worst thing. Everyone mourned Dumbledore, and some people had even started saying that Snape should have had a better life, but no one mentioned Sirius or Remus.

Or the other figure who came to stand next to Remus now, her hair colored grey and purple, her eyes wide with yearning.

"Tonks," Harry whispered. "I promise, I'm going to bring you back, too. Teddy needs his mum."

The darkness gave one final sigh. Not even death could dim the color of Fred's hair. And Harry thought the yearning in his eyes was probably worse than the yearning in the eyes of all the rest, because he'd died younger.

"Your family still talks about you," Harry told him. "It's awful. But they're starting to act and think like getting over your death is for the best." He smiled painfully. "Except George. He still misses you more than he loves life. That will help him, to see you again."

They stood there, looking at him, and the emptiness behind them finally began to take form in Harry's eyes. It _did _look like a sea, with endless black waves rolling in to the blank shore across which the river crawled. That was what the book meant, and Harry thought more spirits would have come out of it if he had Called.

But these were enough for right now, and he sat there looking at them until the fires burned down and the vision vanished. Then he set about using the healing spells the book had suggested for correcting the sacrifice and making it look as if he had never lost part of a finger.

The yearning in their eyes wasn't something the book had talked about, and certainly not something Portillo Lopez had thought was important.

_They want to come back so badly. If necromancers are always taking them unwilling from death, why is that?_

*

"Better," Weston said grudgingly, twitching one shoulder as though it hurt her arm to give this praise to Draco. "But you need improvement."

Draco nodded shortly. He was doing his best to ignore the comments that Weston and Lowell gave him now, and simply work at the stupid exercise they had set up for him and Harry, the line of dummies they were supposed to destroy. He had avoided sending most of his spells in Harry's direction this time, but they wouldn't be satisfied until it was perfect, he suspected.

And that's what he wanted. To be perfect. To be the best. Since he and Harry had started the Partnership Trust class, sometimes he thought he could feel the compatible magic stirring between them like a beast slowly waking up from a nap.

But it wasn't strong enough yet to suit Draco's needs.

He sighed and started to cast a spell that would dry the sweat on his forehead, since Lowell and Weston regularly let them out of their private training after three trials, but Lowell stepped towards him and signaled with one hand that he should wait. Draco raised his eyebrows and did so.

"There is something about your performance in the last few sessions that bothers me," Lowell said, shifting his eyes to Harry. "When was the last time that you spoke in any great detail about your compatible magic?"

Draco looked blankly at Harry, to find blank eyes looking back at him. He couldn't remember it. They had trained with compatible magic over the Christmas holidays when Harry was staying with Draco, but since then…

"I don't know, sir," Harry said, and Draco shrugged and nodded right behind him.

"You have a barrier," Lowell said, in the same grim tone that Draco thought Portillo Lopez would use to announce a mortal wound. But Harry just shook his head, and Draco didn't know what Lowell was talking about any more than he did.

"What does that mean?" Draco asked. "A barrier preventing or blocking what, and where does it come from?"

"A barrier across the flow of compatible magic between you." Lowell was staring at the air between them, eyes squinted, as though he could actually see both the magic and the barrier. "It's preventing you from drawing as effectively on your awareness of each other as you should. You _should _be further advanced in your training by now, but you're still stumbling through beginner's steps. That would be acceptable only if you had recently learned about your compatible magic, not worked together for over a year."

Draco clenched his hands. He _could _have had more power, and something was keeping him from it? He wanted to destroy it, right now. "What is the barrier formed from?" he asked, and was glad to hear that his voice came out cold and strong. "Alien magic?"

"No," Lowell said. He reached out a hand, and Weston was simply _there_, moving gracefully forwards to stand under his touch. Draco felt a spasm of envy, but tried not to feel it, and waited as they closed their eyes.

Lowell opened his almost at once, his glare furious, but it was Weston who spoke. "The barrier is formed of a lack of trust," she murmured. "You have not spoken to each other about your compatible magic in too long. You are both hiding important secrets—at least, secrets that are important to you and to your feelings. You _must _exchange thoughts and information, ideas. The magic follows the flow of your thoughts, the flow of communication. No wonder you are not yet advancing."

Draco glanced at Harry, only to find him looking back with a bleak expression. Come to think of it, Draco thought, they hadn't spoken to each other about important things in a _really _long time. They always seemed to be busy with homework or something else equally important, like Draco's expeditions to watch Pushkin dissect Nemo's creatures. Harry spent time with his friends or went off and studied to make sure that he could keep up in the classes. A few times they'd wanked each other off, but it was a means of releasing tension more than anything else. The last time they'd done it, Draco had been grateful when Harry rolled over and started snoring.

"Did you stop for a specific reason?" Lowell was looking back and forth between them.

"Or for a reason that seemed good at the time, but really is not?" Weston grimaced in a way that told Draco that she was familiar with the sensation.

"Not—no," Harry said. "We just stopped talking. It just happened." He extended one hand towards Draco, and Draco clasped it. Harry winced. Draco tried to relax the grip of his fingers. He was frustrated with the situation, not with Harry, and he wanted to show that.

"Then go away and get reacquainted," Weston said bluntly. "It's the only way to make sure that you function together, both as people who share compatible magic and as ordinary partners. I wish we'd known this before," she added in a distracted tone, as she turned away. "It would have saved us some time, and we would have used exercises that you responded to instead of failed at."

Draco ground his teeth, and then turned away with Harry. He wanted to make sure they weren't interrupted while they had their talk, and he wanted to start it as soon as possible. Staying behind to argue with their instructors would be counterproductive.

"Are you all right?" Harry asked quietly as they made their way back through the corridors. "You look angry."

"I am," Draco said. He wanted to hold the words back, but he'd been doing that too much already, and that had resulted in the barrier. He tried to look at Harry, tried to answer as honestly as he could, and it still hurt, it was still hard and awkward.

Harry gave him a strained smile. "Then why don't we go in," he suggested as he opened the door of their rooms, "and you can tell me all about it."


	13. Words Once Spoken

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Thirteen—Words Once Spoken_

The door shut behind them with a sound that Harry, at least, dreaded. He turned to face Draco, who leaned against the door and stared at him uncertainly. Then he straightened his spine and cleared his throat.

_Bully for him, _Harry thought in misery. _He doesn't seem to mind telling me the secrets he's been hiding, whatever they are. But how in the world am I supposed to tell him about the necromancy?_

He knew that Weston and Lowell would insist on that, if they knew. Fuck, they'd probably insist on a lot of other things, too. And Harry simply couldn't give in and confess the secret, because of the way Draco would react.

_Then I'll have to do the best I can, _Harry thought, and felt more fit to meet the challenge when he remembered that he had to do his best for people other than Draco. The yearning eyes of the dead were visible in his mind whenever he blinked. There had to be a way of reconciling their claims and Draco's claims, or at least the ones Lowell and Weston were raising on his behalf.

_I've done harder things. Compared to dying so that everyone else could live, this ought to be easy._

"Why did we stop talking, do you think?" Draco asked. His tone was desperately casual, and he toyed with a button of the front of his robes, staring down at it. "There was no reason to it. It just—happened."

"That's what I think," Harry said quietly, thinking back and trying to remember. It seemed to him that they'd had some pretty honest conversations at Grimmauld Place, when Draco had told him about Lucius escaping from prison and Harry had confessed he loved Draco. But after that, they'd become tied up in their classes and their separate lives, and they didn't seem to come together even when they were, well, coming together.

Draco smiled when Harry said that and nodded. "Yes, I think that's true," he said. "Was there one event that made that happen, though?" He moved away from the door and further into the room, which made Harry feel a little more relaxed.

"I don't think so," Harry said. "But our classes are hard, and we seem to deal with it by sinking into work and forgetting about each other."

Draco relaxed even more. _Was he waiting for me to say that? _Harry thought. _Or maybe he wanted to say it but he's glad to be spared the necessity. _"That's it exactly," Draco said. "And sometimes I wonder whether I really want to be an Auror, if it takes us this long to get there."

"You knew that before we came in, though." Harry peered at him in curiosity. "And you already know that the War Wizards probably won't accept you. What was it that you wanted to do instead?"

Draco hesitated, then gave a flippant shrug of his shoulders and seemed to commit himself to speaking whatever words came into his head. "I want power, Harry. I need it, to protect myself against my father and anyone who might take a special interest in ending my existence." He smiled grimly. "It seems that I have no chance of getting it, since the War Wizards won't take me. I was going to study the Greek magic that I saw Dearborn and Nihil using on my own, but I didn't get the chance before that attack happened, and since then, I've been observing Pushkin, who shares almost nothing."

He finished that with a little rush and then stood peering at Harry. Harry knew his mouth was open, and did his best to shut it. He had never suspected that Draco wanted something like that; he had seemed, if anything, more patient than Harry was, willing to try several new things to see if they would work. The only time he had seemed truly impatient was when Lowell and Weston had criticized his fighting skills.

"I didn't know," Harry said at last. "I'm sorry. I would have tried to help you if I had." Something occurred to him. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"I thought you would think it was—naked," Draco said.

Harry frowned. "What?"

"Too naked a grab for power." Draco was flushing by now, but he looked half-defiant, too. "Why should you trust me with that much? Slytherins were supposed to be ambitious in Hogwarts, and you disliked us for that. I thought you would say the same thing if I explained that I wanted power now. Be amused, or tell me that we had enough with the compatible magic and I should be content."

Harry shook his head hesitantly, and tried to think of sophisticated, subtle words that would explain what he was thinking. Then he decided _that _was never going to happen and went straight for the clear ones. "I don't want power for myself, but I'm not going to oppose your desires as long as you don't want to hurt other people, Draco."

Draco stared at him. Harry could see surprise in his expression, and maybe something else, but Draco turned away before he could be sure. "That's—generous of you," Draco said.

"Why?" Harry said. "I love you, and I know that what I want isn't the same as what everyone else wants." He came forwards a few steps. Draco didn't protest or back away, so Harry wrapped his arms around Draco's waist and leaned his head on Draco's shoulder, listening to his jolting breaths.

"It's hard for you," Harry whispered, "being partnered to me."

Draco made a sharp movement as though he would deny that, and then stood still, only bowing his head slightly.

Harry stroked his back. "I know," he said. "It certainly isn't the fate that either of us thought we would have." He knew Draco was smiling, though he continued to stand there without speaking or moving. "But I don't mind, Draco, really. I'm not threatened if you're stronger than me, because I know that you would always share that strength with me through the compatible magic if I needed it."

Draco finally moved, linking his fingers through Harry's, and whispered, "Why _don't _you want power?"

Harry frowned and wondered how to explain. Draco turned around in his arms meanwhile and stared him directly in the eyes. Harry licked his lips. He would have to be careful how he answered when he was bad at lying and Draco would probably see one easily.

"I want some kinds," he said. "I want to have the strength to protect people and be a good Auror. I haven't really used my fame except for a few small things, but it could be useful if you or one of my friends was in trouble and it was the only way to make the Ministry listen to me. And of course I wanted the strength to kill Voldemort, even though that turned out to be rather different than I thought it would be."

"But magical power," Draco said insistently, touching Harry's cheek with the back of his hand as though feeling for a fever. "I'd think that would be important to you, since you grew up with Muggles. A way of distinguishing yourself from them."

Harry shook his head. "I was just happy to _have _magic, at all. It hasn't bothered me, how strong or how weak I am."

"Well, that's because you're strong," Draco said, face set in a stubborn expression. "It would be different if you weren't, because then you would have to realize how many people around you were more powerful. You'd get tired of looking up to them, and envious, and then you'd want it."

"Maybe that's true," Harry said. "But I don't think it explains you, because you're strong and yet you want more." He hesitated, then decided that he would probably never have the courage to ask this question again if the conversation moved on. "Are you envious of me, because I'm strong?"

Draco leaned hard against him, almost knocking him from his feet. Harry swayed, but managed to stay standing upright. And he looked Draco calmly in the eye, too, because if Draco didn't want to answer this, Harry thought it was all the more important that he get an answer.

Draco scowled over his shoulder at the wall. Then he said, "Lowell and Weston have painful ideas. Remind me to tell them that the next time we see them."

"Doesn't mean they're not good," Harry said gently, and shoved at Draco's left shoulder a little.

"I know." Draco sighed and brought his eyes back to Harry's face. "Sometimes. You seem to do some things so easily. And I envy you your courage. And I envied the way that you fought those beasts off during Nemo's attack, while all I could do was stand there and get frozen by an ice-dragon."

"Nemo would have captured me if not for Flash," Harry said. "And Flash was your gift to me. So you could look at it as you rescuing me."

Draco smiled, but his eyes were vague. "Mostly," he whispered, "I can keep my envy under control, because I know that you'll share your strength with me through the compatible magic. But sometimes, yeah." He shuddered a little and shook his head. "You seem to walk through the world so _unconcerned _sometimes. I wonder how you do it."

Harry laughed. "Have you ever seen me the day before one of the essays is due? I'm not unconcerned then. I think the last time we had an essay due for Coronante, I ended up with ink on my eyelids _and _in my hair, and you were kind enough to let me know about it before everyone started laughing at me."

Draco half-smiled. "Coronante," he muttered. "I wish someone else was teaching us Stealth and Tracking."

Harry cocked his head. "Do you mind her because you think that she's too ridiculous and Aurors should be more dignified, or because she's not pure-blood?"

From the way Draco stiffened and looked at him with sudden wariness, as if he thought that Harry had used Legilimency on him, Harry was sure this was another of the things he had been concealing. He concentrated his gaze and waited with the patient expression he had learned made Draco uneasy and defensive and liable to talk sooner.

*

Draco flexed his fingers open and shut, and wondered how he could approach this subject in a way that wouldn't offend Harry. He had to tell the truth—their magic, and thus their partnership, depended on that—but he wasn't sure he knew the words.

_That's happened a lot before, and you still spoke the truth, and Harry still put up with it and reassured you._

"I don't like that she's so ridiculous," Draco said, deciding to start with the easier question to answer. "And I think that has to do with her blood, because she would have been more reserved and more serious if she had a pure-blood upbringing, which means that I could tolerate her better."

Harry's eyes sharpened. "What about me? Do you disapprove of my manners because I don't have a pure-blood upbringing? What about Hermione?"

"There are times I wish both of you acted differently," Draco said. "But I _know _what kind of upbringing you had, Harry, and I don't want you to think I'm blaming you for it. And Granger is serious enough for me, if not reserved enough."

Harry stepped back and folded his arms. "Would you be happier if I was a pure-blood?"

Draco bowed his head and stared at the floor. They had to dust, he thought absently. And they should sweep, too. Really, the floor of their room was dirtier than he had realized it was.

"Not happier," he muttered at last, when the silence had gone on too long and got a tinge of impatience that he knew came from Harry's waiting. "You're you, and I'm happy with you. But there are times that I wish I could talk about something with you, and then I remember that you wouldn't understand it."

"Is that a difference of blood?" Harry asked. "Or culture? Because that's what it sounds like to me." His breathing and voice were both getting quicker, and Draco had no chance to apologize or say something that would excuse himself, because Harry was sweeping ahead, like a stream in flood. "Besides, what can't you discuss with me? Name one thing that you've talked to me about and that I haven't at least considered."

"The difference in blood, for one thing," Draco said, and met his eyes. "Listen to yourself right now. Are you considering it?"

"I haven't punched you in the nose yet," Harry snapped, "which I think is pretty bloody restrained, given that the subject is the reason Voldemort killed my parents and some people thought Hermione shouldn't be attending Hogwarts."

Draco tilted his head in acknowledgment, but kept his hands clenched. "Perhaps you're right, and it's a difference of culture instead of blood," he said. "But it still puts barriers between us. I still want instructors who are more reserved, like Dearborn, and don't just leap to a conclusion or try to make someone who doesn't learn in the way they approve of feel bad. I want someone who can be calm and cool and explain the subject in long, intelligent sentences."

"Davidson does that," Harry said. He'd stepped back to put some more distance between them, and it made Draco ache to see it. "Lowell. Weston. Even Aran, some of the time. And I _know _that you enjoy the Spell Lexicon class, Draco. Does it matter that maybe they're not all pure-bloods? Is it really the manners you want, or the blood? I think the answer to that question will tell me a lot about you," he added.

Draco swallowed and looked at him for long minutes until he thought that he could speak calmly. He had expected an interruption before then, because Harry was volatile, but all he got was a concentrated stare.

"The blood matters to me," Draco said.

Harry turned his head away.

"But I'm trying not to let it matter," Draco said, and could have grimaced at how high and shrill his voice was getting. Then he decided that that might not matter; maybe Harry would even respond better to it, if he knew that Draco could make the same kind of mistakes he did. He took a few appealing steps nearer, while Harry stubbornly continued to stare at the opposite wall. "I do care about you. I can put up with Granger. I can learn from the teachers who aren't pure-bloods. Just because I might want them to behave better or be different kinds of people doesn't mean I discount them."

Harry whipped around to face him. "Wanting them to be different kinds of people doesn't mean you discount them?" he asked in incredulity. "Draco, do you even bother to listen to yourself for one solitary moment sometimes?"

Draco shook his head. "It's—it's not a prejudice," he said. "It's just something I can't help _noticing, _Harry. It's the way I was raised, the same way you were raised by Muggles. I want people to act the way my parents taught me. I think coldness is politeness. I would rather that people be reserved and treat me like an adult than like Coronante does, making bad jokes and then waiting around with this breathless readiness for you to laugh."

"If I was like that," Harry asked, his voice low and deadly, "do you think that we would have become friends, or partners? Or lovers?" He flinched suddenly, though Draco didn't understand why until he spoke the next words. "Does it disgust you every time you touch me, because you think my mother has dirty blood?" he asked accusingly. He had already taken a step towards the door, as if he intended to be ready to leave if Draco's answer didn't please him.

Draco shut his eyes and shook his head. He would have to take more of a risk than he'd thought he would, he realized, his heart pounding crazily. He would have to speak words that he had hoped he would be able to shut up in his heart as long as he needed to, words that exposed him in a dreadful way.

_But this is Harry. I know that he'll give me a kind hearing, a fair one, which is more than those friends of his or anyone else in the whole bloody Auror training program would do._

Draco took a deep breath and moved forwards so that he could take Harry's hands. Harry wouldn't let him at first, keeping them stubbornly folded in fists, but Draco rubbed the back of his knuckles and murmured nonsense words until Harry gradually let his fingers relax and open. Draco then stroked the webs between his fingers until Harry was humming under his breath and shifting restlessly.

"Listen," Draco said. "I love you."

Harry's humming stopped, and he stared at Draco in open disbelief, his arousal forgotten in the wake of what he'd just heard.

Draco smiled. He appreciated the reaction, although he would have liked more joy and less incredulity. "You don't have dirty blood," he said. "And your differences from me, the way you react to things more openly and speak honestly, make us stronger than being exactly alike would. I don't know if I could partner with another pure-blood, tempting as the idea seems. This way, we have contrasting strengths, and we stand more chance of being able to defend ourselves and fight our enemies."

Harry nodded. His eyes were wide and clear again, and he looked at Draco with the quiet appreciation that Draco thought he might have missed more than even honest speech in this last little while when they hadn't been talking. "What about Hermione and Coronante?" Harry asked. "What do you feel about them? They can't benefit you in the same way I do. And you don't care about them in the same way." He had taken Draco's fingers in turn and was gently caressing the backs of his hands with tiny movements of his thumb that were driving Draco mad.

_I don't think he'd like me to jump him right now. _Draco took a deep breath to regain control. _Which is a pity._

"I wish they could behave differently," he said. "But it really is a matter of culture, and not blood, the way you put it. I was calling it blood, but that's because I was used to using one term and didn't want to change my mind. I should, though. Mother always said that being precise in one's speech is an art in itself. I should say what I really mean, not use terms that have a taint on them in more ways than one."

Harry gave him a sweet, radiant smile. "And you really do love me?" he asked, like a child going back to a recently-opened present.

Draco chuckled and bowed his head. "More than you can imagine," he breathed into one ear, and Harry shivered and reached up and wrapped his arms around Draco's neck.

Draco lost track of time for a short while after that, or at least space, as the world seemed to spin and then realign itself in several different directions. When he could properly see and think again, he was resting on the bed, with his shirt on but his pants and trousers stripped off, and Harry was between his legs, stroking his cock with an intentness that Draco wouldn't have exchanged for a thousand pure-blood ancestors.

He tossed his head back and sighed, then moaned when Harry wet one finger and ran it along the tip of his erection. But Harry didn't get on with the faster stroking, which Draco thought was the point of this. Instead, he kept up the gentle touches until Draco frowned and looked at him for an explanation.

"I wanted to be sure you were paying attention," Harry whispered, and then pulled off his own trousers and pants and climbed up to lie on Draco, aligning their cocks.

Draco reached up and grasped Harry's shoulders, holding him in place. This was _perfect. _They could rub against one another without fear of one of them falling off, and Harry's weight was heavy as a warm sleep against his shoulders and chest, and Harry was kissing him and moaning into his mouth, and their cocks slipped and wedged against one another and then slid free again and angled in from the side…

Draco let the world become a blur again, grateful for the sensation and the way that Harry's fingers dug into his shoulders and his sides. Their hisses, squeaks, whimpers, and gasps twined around one another, and Draco arched up and came feeling as if it had been the sounds that compelled his orgasm instead of the friction.

Harry came against him, shuddering with a strength that _did _nearly cause him to fall off, after all. He caught himself in time and kissed Draco's chin lazily, then licked along his cheekbone to his ear, which he bit. Draco slapped his arse in retaliation, and Harry drew in his breath sharply.

"I didn't know you liked that," Draco said in interest.

"I like anything when it's you doing it," Harry said in a breathy voice, and lowered his head to be kissed again. Draco rolled him to the side and reached for his wand to perform a Cleaning Charm.

Harry's eyes shone, and Draco relaxed. Confessing his love hadn't been as bad as he had thought it would be.

And what Harry had said made sense. It was a difference in culture, not a difference in blood, that separated Draco from people like Granger and Coronante. He could see that now. He would use the more precise words because they would please Harry, but also because they more accurately conveyed what he meant.

And he would try to remind himself that not every instructor could act like Dearborn, and he probably wouldn't want them to. Not even Dearborn was a perfect teacher. He hadn't been able to show most of his students how to fight in teams when he tried, which was something Lowell and Weston labored to correct in the Partnership Trust class.

_I could choose another mentor, _Draco thought as he kissed Harry, in that hovering moment before he allowed sex to drown his thoughts completely. _This is supposed to be the year we do that anyway. Go to someone and ask whether he'll teach me. _

Considering the choices left by Dearborn's death and the fact that he wanted his new mentor to be powerful, Draco knew there was only one true choice. Roger Aran, the Spell Lexicon instructor. He would understand why Draco needed more and stronger spells to combat his enemies; that was what he wanted the students to learn in any case.

Satisfied with his plan, Draco gave his full attention back to Harry and slid a hand down his belly, searching for his cock and rubbing the head. Harry arched with a muffled cry.

Draco bit his throat, and listened to that cry travel higher.

*

Harry lay panting beside Draco, his eyes closed. Draco was already asleep. He'd barely managed to cast the Cleaning Charm after their second round, and _hadn't _managed to cast it on Harry; he had dozed off in the middle of a syllable. Harry had done it himself and then curled up next to his partner.

That had worked, far better than Harry had thought it would when he realized Draco hadn't really changed his attitudes towards Muggleborn ancestors. There were still things they should talk about, but this was a good beginning. For the first time in weeks, Harry felt like he was seeing Draco, hearing him, and feeling him when they fucked, instead of a shadow that paled next to some of the other things he had to consider.

And, best of all, he hadn't had to confess any of his own secrets. Draco seemed to think Harry was so honest that he couldn't have any.

Harry put aside the twinge of guilt. He had to remain as loyal as he could to both Draco and the dead. This was the best way to do that.


	14. Steps on the Path

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Fourteen—Steps on the Path_

Draco had stood outside Aran's door for too long. He was beginning to think that he should leave if he was so frightened.

_And what's to be frightened of? _he thought. _Aran's intense, but that's a good quality in a teacher. He cares about what we learn. _

He stood there some moments more until the truth occurred to him. He wanted a teacher who would value him for _himself_, who would seek him out instead of Draco having to do the work, who would admire and condole and admit that it was the fault of other people for not noticing Draco, rather than Draco's fault for not standing out enough. Dearborn had done something like that. Draco missed him still.

_But Dearborn is dead, and my father is free, and I have to think of my future, instead of what I wish would happen, _Draco decided, and knocked on the door.

It opened almost at once. The Spell Lexicon teacher squinted at him. He had a golden ring and a rag in his hands; it looked as if he'd been polishing the ring. Draco blinked despite his determination to appear adult and unconcerned with Aran's inner thoughts. It seemed very mundane for someone of Aran's talents to spend his time doing that.

"Sir?" Draco asked.

"Yes, Malfoy, what is it?" Aran started rubbing the ring again without taking his eyes off Draco. Draco felt a twinge from the insult, but perhaps it wasn't meant to be an insult. Perhaps Aran simply wanted to accomplish two tasks at once. Draco had to admit that he had never sensed any hostility from Aran towards him, the way he probably would have if Aran hated Death Eaters.

"I wondered," Draco said, and the words froze in his throat so that he had to melt them with the fire of his courage before he could speak again, "if you would consent to mentor me."

Aran jerked his head up and stared. Draco clenched his hands together and met the stare. Surprise was not a refusal.

"Well," Aran said at last. "That's an unexpected request." He considered for a moment, then stepped aside. "Come in."

Draco followed Aran into a spare, neat office, almost pathologically neat. The books stood upright on the shelves with space before and behind them, and Draco was sure he would find them all in alphabetical order by author if he looked at them. The carpet on the floor was a rich red with dark swirls, and in the center of that stood an ebony desk with a hard wooden chair behind it. There was no other place to sit, but Aran casually Transfigured a stack of blank parchment into a stool and set it before his desk. He took the chair, sitting in a way that told Draco he must have received scoldings about posture when he was a child. He never took his eyes from Draco, and he never stopped polishing the ring.

Draco cleared his throat, rested his arms on his knees, and tried not to mind the fact that his head was now considerably below Aran's. "I decided on you because I think we would get along well, sir," he said. "I want to learn as many spells as you can teach me, and I'm always looking to expand my repertoire. And I want the same thing you do."

"Which is?" Aran cocked his head to the side. He appeared to have finally finished polishing the ring to his satisfaction, and put it in a drawer of the desk, which he locked. Draco wondered what kind of Dark artifact it was. He couldn't envision Aran being interested in it unless it was Dark, or at least powerfully enchanted.

"To see more of the students learn more spells," Draco said. "I think it's disgraceful that some of the Auror trainees barely learn more than they do in Hogwarts, and they're always relying on elementary charms and defensive magic to get out of trouble." He was relaxing now. Aran continued to watch him as if he were fascinating, and any result that wasn't being yelled at to leave was a good one for Draco. "As your trainee, I could help the others much more than I could if I were studying on my own."

Aran nodded, a small motion, like a bird dipping its beak to reach a crumb. "That is the speech you planned to give me," he said. "Now I want to know your real reasons."

Draco blinked. "Sir?"

Aran rested his hands on the desk as he leaned forwards, half-rising from the chair. Draco stared. There were muscles bulging and flexing along Aran's arms that he hadn't realized were there. Was the man good in unarmed combat as well as with spells? Probably, Draco thought. He didn't think Aran would disdain any means of beating an enemy. "I've watched you, Malfoy. You're skilled, yes. But if you give a fuck for anyone besides that partner of yours, I haven't seen evidence of it."

Draco flushed. "I do want to see the others do better," he said. "It's physically painful to watch them struggle with spells they should be able to cast easily."

"There's that," said Aran, still looking unmoved. "But is it important enough to you to give up the time and effort that I would demand from you? I doubt it. So tell me why you sought me out, instead of someone like Lowell or Weston, who I think would be more to your taste. Not to mention that they would be able to teach you how to use compatible magic."

"I want to be powerful," Draco said. _If he can be that blunt to me, blunt to the point of offensiveness, so can I. _"I think that you can teach me to become so."

Aran sat back down in his seat and smiled. "That's better, lad," he said. "But there's another condition to discuss."

Draco inclined his head and sat waiting. That sounded like half an acceptance, anyway.

"I know that you have compatible magic," Aran said, looking at Draco with eyes that glinted like his ring. "And I know that partners who have magic like that never work well alone. You teach one, and then you have to go and teach the other because he didn't learn it and he _needs _to. I might as well instruct both of you at the same time, don't you think? And since you're so obliging as to show that you care about him, I think we'd better have your partner in here as well. I can mentor him so that I won't have to spend a second hour on his education for each spell, and you can have his presence so that you aren't as distracted as you'd probably be without him."

Draco didn't appreciate the characterization of himself as easily distracted, but he knew that Aran wouldn't care if he made the objection. In fact, he might lose everything that he'd gained so far. So he swallowed, nodded, and said, "I don't know if Harry will agree, though."

Aran shrugged. "Do you know that until you ask? Ask him first, and then bring any noise of a refusal to me."

Draco nodded. Aran glanced from him to the door, and Draco stood up and left at the indication of dismissal, though he wondered privately if he could work with Aran after all. The man was considerably more rude and abrupt than Draco had realized from his performance in class.

But he had power, and he knew power, and he had offered to teach both Draco and Harry that power. Draco was certain that Harry would want to know the spells so that they could work together, if not because he cared about being magically strong. This was the best offer they would get.

*

"I don't know." Harry frowned at Draco. The news that Aran wanted to mentor them both was startling, and somewhat unwelcome. _How am I going to practice my necromancy if I have to go to training sessions with him all the time? It's already hard enough with my ordinary classwork and the compatible magic lessons with Lowell and Weston. _"How much work do you think we'll have to do?"

Draco, lying beside him on the bed, snorted and rested his head on Harry's shoulder. "That _would _be the first thing you think of," he said. "Instead of how much we can get out of this, or whether it will make us better fighters, or even better Aurors. How much work you'll have to put in."

"Oi!" Harry pushed at his shoulder. "I worked hard during the war, I'll have you know. I don't see that it's so unreasonable to want relaxation after that."

Draco laughed outright and rolled to the side so that he was lying on the pillow instead of on Harry. "If you wanted _that_, you never would have chosen a career as an Auror," he said. "You'd be sitting on your arse in some rich manor house, drinking and thinking of ways to spend your money."

"And I would have gone mad in three days like that," Harry finished with a sigh. _Yes, I need something to do. I need people to rescue, a world to save. But there doesn't seem to be much I can do about Nihil—which is another reason that I want to bring the dead back. _"Yes, all right. But you haven't answered my question."

"I have no idea," Draco said easily. "Aran's more demanding than I thought he was. But, Harry, we'll get advanced instruction." He smiled at Harry. "That ought to make our other classes easier."

Harry eyed him skeptically. "Is he an expert in Stealth and Tracking? Concealment and Disguise?"

"Our classes for next year, if not for this one." Draco was unrepentant, and that told Harry more about how proud he was of himself for securing Aran's tutelage than any mere words could. "Come on, Harry! Will you do it?"

Harry traced a curve over Draco's hip that a line of sweat had already marked, and thought about it. He had been shaken and ashamed—afterwards—by the honesty that Draco had used with him the other day. Here was Draco offering up all his secrets, and Harry at the same time holding back the truth about his necromancy.

But then he remembered again what would happen if Draco learned about it, and shuddered. _He would react so badly. Nothing he could say would drive me away from him like the truth would drive him away from me._

This was something he could do to make up for it, maybe. Harry smiled at Draco. "If you really want to. But if it's too much work, then I'll have to quit, all right? I need to make sure that I can actually pass my classes."

Draco kissed him instead of answering, and Harry let himself be borne back into the pillows, telling his guilt to shut up.

*

Draco received the letter that morning at breakfast.

The owl that brought it was ordinary, an undistinguished post-owl, and Draco opened it almost without thought. His first idea was that one of his friends from Hogwarts was writing to them. Some of them were still incredulous that he had chosen an Auror career and regularly wrote to inquire about what he was doing and if he'd come to his senses yet.

Then he saw his mother's handwriting, and instinctively folded over the top of the paper so that no one could see it.

The sudden movement caught Weasley's eye, but he only shook his head as though he expected Slytherin secrets and went back to eating. Harry leaned forwards, eyes concerned and warm. "Are you all right?"

"I need to leave," Draco said, and shoved the tray back, knowing that Harry would take care of it. He almost ran out of the eating area, but gritted his teeth and walked, in the end. He didn't want to draw more attention to himself than necessary.

He halted in the first empty corridor that he came to and unfolded the top of the letter. His heartbeat shook his body, and he felt as if he would start losing bits of himself at any moment: teeth, stands of hair, fingernails, anything that could fall off would.

His mother's handwriting had nothing strained about it; the letters weren't blotted, or larger than usual, or marching in anything but a straight line across the page. Draco still stared intently at it for a long moment before he could _persuade _himself of that, and even then he had to take more than one glance before he decided that he should read it.

_Draco:_

_I am writing this letter while Lucius sleeps in the bed that has been ours for longer than you have been alive. His face has lines that were never there before he went to Azkaban. He says that the glamour-creature he left behind is sure to die soon, and that you will receive notice from the Ministry. Pretend to grieve. It will be safer for all of us._

Draco tapped his fingers against the paper and wished his mother was here, in front of him, so he could say what he thought of that. If there was one thing that was different in this paragraph from the rest of her letters, it was the way it rambled, turning in several different directions and including odd instructions, instead of saving them for the end. He continued.

_I know that you feel yourself caught between the open future of your own life and the pressure of family tradition. But I would caution you to remember that no one can make a present and future who forgets the past._

Draco snorted bitterly. "You've always said that," he whispered. "But this is the first time that it feels like it has resonance, and of course that resonance is supposed to matter more than what I want."

_You should remember duty. You should remember that your father does care for you, and other than restricting your access to the Malfoy vaults, he's done nothing that would hurt you. It does not seem to have injured you much. I suppose that Harry is letting you live on his money?_

Draco frowned and shifted his shoulders. On the one hand, that last question seemed painfully contemptuous, but on the other, his mother had called Harry by his first name. She was sending confusing, mixed signals.

_Come home when you can, Draco. You need to speak to your father, and we need to find a way forward for the family, together. How can we do that when our heir is so far from us and cannot add his voice to the conversation?_

"Yes, of course," Draco muttered. "The way for me to add my voice to the conversation is to be spelled into marrying someone."

_I have persuaded Lucius that is it not in his best interests to hurt you further. But we still require your presence. We will look for you at the Christmas holidays, if not sooner. _

_Your loving mother, _

_Narcissa Malfoy._

Draco shook his head. The letter was practically useless, containing the advice his father would have given.

_Well, at least I reckon I know which side she's on now._

Draco started to crumple up the letter and throw it away, but then he saw a slight, shimmering stain on her name. He frowned and tilted the paper to the light, and the stain grew, spreading out until it looked as though there was something inside the paper itself.

Draco caught his breath, remembering some of the notes that his mother had written to him during that terrible year when the Dark Lord had taken over Malfoy Manor and any communication between them was suspect.

_I'm a fool._

He held his wand up to the paper and whispered a Heating Charm. As the warmth spread over the paper, the stain turned from transparent to pale brown. Draco had to squint, but he could read the message Narcissa had written behind the original letter and in the blank lines between its words.

_This is the message that your father will never see; I wrote the other letter to satisfy him while sounding as if I hadn't quite made up my mind yet. He is clever enough not to believe that I would fall in behind him so quickly._

_Draco, my darling son, do whatever you must to be safe and happy. I love Lucius, but the trick he has played has endangered us all. And I now feel as if I do not know him. I do not know what other magic he may have studied and kept secret from us, if he is as powerful in illusions as he claims he is._

_I do know what my tasks are: to keep you safe, as I did during the war, and to ensure that someone who I fear means you harm does not do it. I will conduct a private war against Lucius, and I fully expect to have more success than I did against the Dark Lord. He still has the heart of the man I love, and part of the mind, though he thinks strange thoughts and laughs at strange things. The first dose has been administered, and its remnant created these lines._

_Love, Narcissa._

Draco shivered and closed his eyes. He did know what his mother's last words meant, as strange as they would have seemed to anyone else. Narcissa made the ink that hid the words from the crushed heart of a Galumphus Toad. For most of the time Draco had known her to use it, she had only used the inner blood of the heart and thrown out the rest of it.

But shavings from such a heart could create a potion that would, over time, slowly alter someone's perceptions of the world, while leaving them firmly convinced that they were making all their own decisions.

_If Father finds out Mother is using that…_

Draco shook his head in the next moment. Narcissa could take care of herself. His concern for her might be overwhelming, but she would not thank him for paying so much attention to her that he forgot to keep himself safe.

He would watch out for Lucius's next move, and he would watch for letters from his mother, and if he _could _do something—such as sending back letters that made vague agreeing noises to keep Lucius from getting too suspicious—then he would. Otherwise, he would play his side of the game and let Narcissa play hers.

_This is another reason to become as powerful as I can, _Draco thought as he strode back to their rooms. He needed a short time to recover himself before he went to class. _It will mean that I can protect myself from my father if the need arises. God knows what other magic he's learned, as Mother pointed out._

*

Harry rapped his fingers against the page of the necromancy book in agitation. The rituals that the book advised him to perform next were all complicated, and all of them required some sort of props—not just salt and the black candles, which Harry had been prepared to accept, but knives of silver or crystal, shallow pewter dishes on which to burn meat, sacrifices of living animals. How was he supposed to get all that?

Draco opened the door, and Harry hastily tucked the necromancy book under the pile of other books that he needed for his classes. The skin on his back still crawled as he turned around to smile at Draco. He hated having the book out in the open where Draco could see it, and if he'd been wise, he would have hidden it when he knew Draco was close to coming back from his study session in the library. But he was growing frantic to perform another ritual, so he could at least tell the dead he hadn't forgotten about them, and he kept looking at the words just in case he'd missed the description of a small and simple one.

"I've thought of something," Draco said. His voice rang like a bell, and he dropped to a crouch in front of Harry and laid his hands on Harry's knees. His eyes were so bright that Harry wondered with irrational fear if they could see better than usual, and therefore if he would spot his book. But he tried to smile back, because that would distract Draco better.

"What's that?" Harry reached out and ran his fingers through Draco's hair. It felt less soft than usual. Was that perception real, he wondered, or just because he was thinking of the wispy, cold softness of the dead?

"Professor Snape left his library to me," Draco said. "We haven't sought it out yet. I understand why. We had better things to do, and then Nihil attacked and Dearborn died and—I didn't have much time to think about it." His breath caught, and he closed his eyes. Harry caressed his hair and wondered what he would say if Harry told him that he might be able to see Dearborn again. "But I think we should," Draco continued in a stronger voice. "There could be books there that might tell us more about what the Death Eaters did, the things that Nihil adopted or changed from their research. There might even be information about Nihil himself, though under another name. And there might be books that would help us if my father ever proved to be a threat."

Harry nodded. Draco had told him about Lucius and what Narcissa was doing against him. Harry had to admire her bravery, especially when he wondered if Lucius knew necromancy. "When did you want to go and fetch the books?"

Draco blinked at him, as if he had thought Harry would make more opposition, but said, "What about tomorrow afternoon? Aran wants to see us in the morning for our first training session."

Harry dug his fingers into the arms of the chair, but nodded again. He would have wanted that time to look through the necromancy bank, except that he already thought he wouldn't find anything no matter how long he stared.

_That's another good thing about getting Snape's library. Maybe there'll be books on necromancy among them._

"Good." Draco leaped to his feet and looked at Harry for a minute. "There's so much pressure on me, from all sides," he confessed in a low voice. "But you're helping me to bear it."

Harry smiled at him, but shut his eyes when Draco turned his back. He wasn't one-half as supportive as he should have been, if Draco had only known that.

Draco went into the bathroom, and there was a small, sharp note immediately, like a plucked string. Harry looked around, but saw nothing unusual until he looked down and realized that there was a note on his leg.

It was marked on the outside with a wheel, tangled with spikes of deadly nightshade.

Harry unfolded it, wondering numbly how it could have just _appeared _there, given all the wards in the Ministry. The note held only three lines in a small, tight hand. It could have been Portillo Lopez's writing, but then again, it might not be.

_You are in the first stage, greed and hunger. The second stage, obsession, is coming on. After that is the bloodthirst, and then worse. Accept help, before it is too late. You will not be allowed to reach the fourth._

The note dissipated into motes of light as Draco came back out of the bathroom and smiled at him. "Did I ever tell you how lucky I am to have you?"

His conscience aching like a wound, Harry stood up and came over to hug him. "I love you," he mumbled, pressing his face to Draco's neck and breathing in his hot scent as if that would mean he could forget about the dead.

It didn't work. The moment he closed his eyes, _their_ yearning eyes were there.


	15. We Are the Dead

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Fifteen—We Are the Dead_

Draco studied Harry thoughtfully. They were on their way back to their rooms after having secured permission from the instructors to go to Hogwarts, and now that that worry was removed from his mind, he had time to notice Harry's odd behavior.

_Or has it been odd for a long time, and this is just the first time that I've paid this much attention to him?_

Harry walked along with a frown on his face. He kept his eyes on the floor, lips moving as if he were counting his steps and wanted to be careful not to pass some important number. His fingers tapped out random rhythms on his hips, his legs, the backs of his hands. That was a habit that Draco didn't remember Harry having before.

_Is he nervous about something? _Draco decided, after long moments of observation that told him nothing, that he might as well ask. After all, he and Harry were on better terms with each other since he'd told Harry he loved him, and Weston and Lowell had admitted that the barrier between them was much improved, if not completely lowered. Draco thought it would take time to lower it all the way.

"Harry," he said, "is something wrong?"

Harry jumped and gave him a nervous, guilty look. Draco's eyes narrowed. Nervous he could understand, if Harry was worried about an exam or an essay, but guilty?

_Unless it's that random guilt he always carries. He always seems to think he should be doing something different than what he _is _doing. _

"I'm worried," Harry admitted in a whisper. "I know that Snape left his library to you, but what if there are traps in place that he forgot to remind you of? No matter how clever he was, we don't know exactly when that Pensieve memory was made, and maybe he changed his mind after he made it."

Draco smiled. He knew the source of Harry's nervousness now. He had nearly died when a spell in a Death Eater cache caught up with him last year, and Harry had been adamant against any more investigations after that happened. He was picturing the same thing happening again this time.

"I trust that memory," Draco said. "We don't have to worry, because I'm sure that if Professor Snape had changed his mind, he would also have changed the orders that the Pensieve was to be delivered to me after his death."

Harry didn't look completely convinced, but nodded anyway. And after that, Draco noticed, some of his tapping ceased, and he could discuss their trip to Hogwarts the next day like a normal person.

_Good, _Draco thought, curling up in bed beside Harry with his arm over his chest. _His own feelings make him suffer more than any physical wound could ever do. If he knows that I'm safe, he won't suffer._

*

_Draco, I'm sorry, _Harry thought, closing his eyes. It felt as if they were crusted with ice—the tears he couldn't shed without Draco starting to think that something was _really _wrong. _But you would never let me do this if you knew._

*

Draco had expected a greater shock as they walked across the grounds of Hogwarts, past the Forbidden Forest, heading for the castle. He felt as though too much had happened in the past year to separate him from the boy he had been when he was in school. He should have seen the towers like a blow; he should have been overwhelmed with memories when he saw the lake and the stretch of grass where the hippogriff had bitten him.

Instead, he noted those things with faint interest and curiosity, and nothing more. Thoughts of Professor Snape's library immediately intruded.

_I don't know which books will be most useful to me, _he admitted mentally as he and Harry began to round the edge of the lake, _because my goals are so ill-defined. But he had them organized well enough that it shouldn't be a struggle to sift through the information the way that it would be in a place like the trainee library._

As the thought of the library came to him in more detail, Draco found his shoulders rising in triumph, his strides getting longer. They'd had to get permission from Headmistress McGonagall to visit the school, too, and she hadn't sounded gracious about it. Draco assumed they would have a nasty confrontation when they faced her.

But the prize waiting for him made it all worthwhile.

Draco abruptly became aware that his footsteps were crunching over the ground alone. He turned back. Harry stood near the edge of the Forbidden Forest, staring into it as if paralyzed.

Draco went back to fetch him, one hand resting on his wand. They had met Nemo's beasts once in the Forest, and even though Harry had walked into the trap by going there to help the foolish gamekeeper, there was no guarantee that the beasts weren't still lurking there.

"What is it?" Draco whispered as he came up beside Harry. He glanced into the forest, but it was an unbroken wall of solid green to him. From the devastated look Harry turned on him, he saw more than that.

"Don't you see them?" Harry whispered.

"See who?" Draco tried another glance. The trees remained the same. He could hear no crackling or smashing sounds that would indicate the approach of large beasts like the ones who had attacked the Ministry, the ones Nemo tended to favor.

Then he looked again, and _saw._

*

Harry had felt eyes on him from the Forbidden Forest the moment they arrived at Hogwarts, but he hadn't thought much of it. After all, centaurs lived in there—centaurs who were less friendly to humans than ever since the war, as if they resented that a battle had occurred at Hogwarts—and probably some werewolves, and the latest beast that Hagrid would be trying to tame.

But the eyes grew so close and persistent that he finally turned his head.

A unicorn stood staring at him from the edge of the Forest. Harry was surprised that one would come so close to a wizard—especially a male, adult wizard—but he prepared to enjoy the sight anyway.

Then he realized that the unicorn was transparent, and its haunches went through the trees. Its body was oddly distorted in shape, too, wavering at the edges as if made of smoke. Its horn was a short, stubby block one moment and a long, elegant corkscrew the next.

It stepped forwards, and Harry heard no sound from its hooves, even the slight crackle that was all he would expect to hear on the thick leaves.

Then the unicorn spoke.

The voice passed straight into Harry's head without benefit of his ears. Perhaps that was because it held so much concentrated bitterness that hearing it aloud would have destroyed Harry.

_We are the dead. We are the left-behind ones, the remnants of experiments, the ghosts of slaughter. You saw us made, and you did not avenge us._

"I don't know what you're talking about," Harry whispered, his eyes flicking to the sides as more and more unicorn ghosts came up to join the first one. They blended into each other as easily as they blended into the trees, so it was hard to tell how many there were. "I've never killed a unicorn. The only one I know who has is—"

Harry stopped when he remembered how he had come upon Voldemort drinking from the blood of the dead unicorn in his first year. Yes, he had seen it die, and he knew others had perished to satisfy Voldemort's appetite as well. But he had never thought of what they might leave behind, other than bodies and a grieving Hagrid.

Harry attempted to straighten up and speak more firmly. He could feel Draco coming back towards him, and that gave him courage. "I avenged you more than two years ago. Voldemort is dead."

The ghosts crowded towards him. Their breath made the air cold. Their bodies made the universe sway. If Harry had seen unfulfilled longing in the eyes of his own dead, there was nothing but hatred here—hatred, and longing for a life that had been stolen from them, rather than anything Harry could give back to them.

Draco came back and asked a few questions. Harry thought he answered. He couldn't remember, later. His attention was totally consumed by the unicorns, and his struggle to figure out what they were asking of him.

When long moments had passed, Harry finally shook his head and said, "Yes, I watched one of you die and didn't avenge you." He didn't say that he'd only been eleven at the time. He doubted that ghost unicorns would care. "But what do you want me to do about it now?"

_We are the dead, _the voices said. They beat against his ears like a swarm of icy bees.

"I understand that," Harry said. His fingers were turning blue, and he had to struggle to speak. "But what does that mean? What concrete action can I take, since you seem to want one?"

Draco's arm tightened around him, and Harry thought he could hear him saying something about how Harry tried to take too much action, tried to take too much on himself. Harry couldn't listen. He _had _to hear the voices of the dead, and he strained stubbornly forwards to them, listening.

_We are the dead, _said the unicorn. Suddenly the rest of the ghosts had vanished, and only one stood there. Harry wondered if it was the one he had first seen, but again, it changed so much there was no way to tell. _We need peace._

It vanished. The sensation of watching eyes went at the same time. Harry didn't think the unicorn ghosts were drifting through the Forest and looking at him reproachfully right now.

He shivered, and reached up an absent hand to pat Draco's arm where it was slung around him, pulling him tight against Draco's body. But his mind was on what the unicorn had said.

_We need peace. _

How in the world could Harry give them that, when they weren't even human? He thought he understood what the spirits of people he had known in life would want, but not these others. They probably didn't even have bodies to be buried anymore, which was what ghosts traditionally seemed to want in most of the stories Harry had heard.

"Harry!"

That shout, right in his ear, woke him up. Harry blinked and turned towards Draco. Then he realized his fingers were much colder than they should be, and beat them together as he stared into Draco's eyes.

"Were they talking to you?" Draco's face was pale. Harry couldn't tell if that was fear, or strain and stress. He thought he once would have been able to tell, but he had traveled a long way in one direction, and it wasn't a voyage that Draco could share with him. Harry wasn't even sure if the unicorns had spoken to him because he had seen one of them die, or because he was becoming a necromancer, or because he was the one who was supposed to kill Voldemort, or for some other reason.

"Yes," Harry said. "They said they were dead and wanted peace." The words sounded strange when he spoke them, as though the dread majesty of their bitterness had been stripped away. He blinked and shook his head.

_This is another thing that I can't share with Draco. He would only tell me to—_

"You take too much on yourself," Draco said. His voice was steady, but flat with anger. He met Harry's eyes and held them, a silent challenge to just _try _and look away in his gaze. "You always did. I don't know what the fuck they wanted or what they would try to compel you to do, but just remember that you don't need to listen to them."

Harry nodded, but said nothing. How in the world could he make Draco understand? There was a claim on him, a claim because he was the one who had heard the unicorns speak and no one else. If other people wouldn't clean up the mess, it was up to the person who discovered it.

"We'll ask the Headmistress about them," Draco said, more calmly now, but still looking a little wild around the eyes. "I can't imagine that a bunch of unicorn ghosts wandering the Forest would go unreported."

"It might depend on who comes out here, and when," Harry muttered as they began to trudge towards the castle again. "What if they were attracted by me, and so they came out for the first time?"

Draco gave him an odd look. "Why would they be attracted by you?"

And that was another of the things Harry couldn't explain. Luckily, he had an out. He could shake his head weakly and mutter something about how he just thought it was likely, and Draco would see it as another instance of his tendency to be overdramatic and imagine himself at the center of events when he really wasn't.

_When did I become so good at lying? And manipulating someone I love, who loves me, someone I'm supposed to have the most honest relationship in the world with?_

Harry had to close his ears to those objections. He _had _to. Because he wouldn't betray the dead for the sake of the living. He wouldn't do it the other way around, either, of course. That just meant that he had to be as careful as he could, and walk a thin line, and consider all his actions before he made them.

He would work it out in the end. He would have to.

*

"But surely someone must have—"

"Nothing like what you described has been reported, Mr. Malfoy." The Headmistress's voice was as smooth as ice. She took one glance at Harry, though, and her voice softened. "Are you sure that you don't want help searching in the dungeons? No one has been near Severus's rooms since he died, and I don't know what kind of traps he may have left in place."

Draco rolled his eyes and wondered when Gryffindor loyalty lessened, or if it ever did. Yes, Harry had been a Gryffindor and McGonagall's student and the Savior of the World and all that rot, but Draco had been her student, too.

It sounded extremely thin, when he put it that way. He decided to stay silent for now, while Harry gave McGonagall a weak smile.

"I think we'll be fine," he said, and his eyes went to Draco. "Snape left his library to Draco, we know that—and he was on our side in the end. I don't think he would have left traps that could hurt Draco."

"When it came to the protection of his knowledge, Severus was adamant." The Headmistress started gathering her robes around her as if she would rise and accompany them. On the walls, the portraits of past Headmasters watched with interest. Draco had the impression that Dumbledore was particularly interested, though he refused to look up at him. Snape had a portrait, but wasn't in it. "I think I should make sure that two of our most famous students aren't injured in the pursuit of it." She looked pointedly at Draco.

_She really does think that I would try to do harm to Harry, right here and now, _Draco thought incredulously, and opened his mouth to defend himself.

"No, Headmistress," Harry said, and his voice was firm. "We'll be fine, but thank you. Stay here and do the more important work we interrupted." He took Draco's arm and gave her a much firmer smile.

_He can sense that she doesn't like me, _Draco thought, and calmed. He would never want Harry to defend him all the time, but it was nice to know that someone was on his side no matter what happened.

"Very well," said McGonagall, after so long a pause that Draco thought she was going to force the issue anyway. "Then go." She sat down and rearranged the papers on her desk, probably to cover her loss of dignity. One of the portraits cackled and said something in a Scots accent so thick that Draco couldn't understand it, but McGonagall turned and glared.

"Come on," Harry said, and hauled Draco out of the office and onto the moving staircase. Draco stood there and fought memories of Dumbledore until they consented to lie down like the dead things they were.

Only then did he look at Harry, who stood with one elbow braced on the turning wall and watched everything with calm, intelligent eyes.

"You seem to have got over your encounter with the unicorn ghosts," he said.

Harry turned his head quickly, blinked, and studied him. "Draco, are you jealous?" he finally asked. "You sound like it."

Draco blew his breath out and tried to pin the irritation he was feeling down to a singular cause. "Maybe," he admitted at last, aware that he sounded sulky, but not sure what he could do about it. "I don't see how you can escape the memories here, but you're doing better than I am."

Harry reached out and stroked his arm. "Mine are less traumatic." Draco snorted almost hard enough to expel a lung, but Harry persisted. "No, listen to me. I fought Voldemort here, and it hurt, yes, but I was triumphant in the end. That's what I remember, more than anything else. The last few times you were here were times of fear and pain, and you didn't get a lot of closure the way I did. So it's understandable that you're suffering the way you are."

"It makes me weak," Draco said.

Harry's face underwent a short, sudden change, which in the end faded back to his calm expression. "I don't think so," was all he said.

Draco followed him down to Professor Snape's rooms, wondering about the suppressed expression and what it meant.

*

Harry had never realized that a library could smell so _overpowering._

The scent of dust was everywhere. So was the scent of leather. So was a scent that Harry thought of as wet and green, though he wasn't sure what it really was. Probably some Potions ingredient left behind, or a small creature who had managed to get inside the wards surrounding the library and then died there.

He leaned against the wall in the entrance to the room and watched as Draco turned slow circles in the middle of it, staring at the neatly organized books. His expression was rapturous. Harry smiled in spite of himself. He thought that was the kind of look Hermione would wear if this library had been left to her.

_And I do wonder if Snape had any books on necromancy._

Just looking at the books, Harry couldn't identify any. The books were all uniformly bound in black leather, with gold lettering on the spines that spelled out their titles or, sometimes, an author's name with no title. Draco seemed to understand the organization perfectly well, because he had already stepped up to the nearest shelf and was running a finger approvingly along one set of books. But Harry didn't know whether the library was ordered by subject, title, author, nastiness of magic involved, or something else known only to Snape.

"This is interesting," Draco said, and pulled out a book. "This might be something we could use in the study with Lowell and Weston." He turned the book so that Harry could see the title. _Pressures of Compatible Magic._

"Pressures?" Harry asked, coming closer and trying to look interested and not as if he was scanning the shelves for something else. "What does that mean?"

"I don't know," Draco said, and flipped the book open, apparently preparing to get lost in the words.

Harry coughed delicately, and waited until Draco peered at him. "Not that I want to interrupt your reading," he said. "But we should crate these books up as soon as possible and bring them back to the Ministry. Our leave was only for the morning."

Draco blushed—the first time in a long time Harry had seen him do that in a situation that didn't involve sex—and tucked the book under his arm. "Of course," he said. "Sorry. I wasn't thinking."

Harry shook his head and couldn't help giving Draco an amused smile. "It's all right. But I thought you'd like to know about it before we ran out of time." He drew his wand and conjured the first crate. He and Draco had discussed the best method of moving the books, and agreed that it would be containers they could shrink and carry, but neither of them had been able to Transfigure or conjure an acceptable trunk. Crates were easier.

He and Draco worked in silence, moving the books into the crates and conjuring more crates as necessary. Draco sometimes stopped to exclaim over a book or stare at it with greedy eyes. Harry patiently outwaited every incident of that. Draco was still moving along at a good pace, and Harry still couldn't ignore the teasing promise of possible information that waited in the necromancy books in the library.

_If it has any._

"Look at this."

Draco's voice was choked. Harry looked up. He was holding a book that looked much like all the others, if smaller. Harry couldn't see the title or author from the way Draco's hand was positioned on the spine. He leaned in.

The book was a neat listing of names, with numbers, locations, dates, and notes beside them. At a first glance, Harry couldn't see anything that remarkable. It looked like a list of Potions masters across Europe that Snape might have kept for his own use, and was, for all Harry knew.

Then Draco pointed a shaking finger to the name on the page that had drawn his attention, and Harry caught his breath in shock.

_Caradoc Dearborn._

Harry blinked. "That was—that was Dearborn's brother, wasn't it?" he asked. "The one who disappeared during the war?"

Draco nodded. "This is a list of all the victims of the Death Eaters," he whispered. "God knows why Professor Snape kept it, but he did. We should be able to find out something in here about Nihil, and maybe about the research they were conducting."

Harry looked at the note beside Caradoc's name. There was the date he had been captured, the name of the cache he had been taken to—which Harry had to admit meant nothing to him; they had a map of the caches, but didn't know all the names that the Death Eaters had given them—a number that could have meant anything, and then notes. Notes on how he died, Harry thought. If Dearborn himself had ever seen this, it could explain why he was passionate about Dark magic; he might think that he needed Dark magic to fight the kind of people who would do things like this to his brother.

But those notes were less informative than Harry could have hoped. They said, _Tortured almost to death using the Flesh-Shredding Curse. Interrupted by o. Transformed. _

While Harry was frowning at the last word, Draco said, "This has to be it. The solution to the mystery."

"What do you mean?" Harry asked, looking up at him.

"He was tortured _almost _to death," Draco said fiercely. "And then he changed into something else. What can that mean except that Caradoc Dearborn is Nihil? He discovered some means to pass beyond death, perhaps because he was in such excruciating pain. Wizards can do amazing things with their magic when they're pushed. He probably did. They would have no reason to cease the experimenting prematurely. They were interrupted. What did it? _He _did."

Harry nodded slowly. It looked as though Draco was right, and Dearborn's true identity had been hiding among Snape's papers all along.

While Draco eagerly flicked through the ledger, looking for more information, Harry thought again of that notation. For some reason, even though he couldn't prove it had anything to do with necromancy—and he wanted nothing to do with Nihil's brand of necromancy anyway—it aroused his curiosity.

_Interrupted by o._

Who or what was o?

With no good evidence, Harry was inclined to think it wasn't Caradoc.


	16. Changes

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Sixteen—Changes_

"Very good." Weston's voice was cool as she paced around them, watching them with critical eyes—eyes that were critical of things Draco thought hardly mattered, or didn't exist, or at least weren't clearly explained. He and Harry had managed to get through the training exercise with the row of dummies, not striking each other with a single spell. And still Lowell and Weston set the bar higher for them, and shook their heads when Harry or Draco fell a bit below their standards.

_What standards are there for compatible magic, anyway? _Draco thought as he mopped at his brow and stepped back to give Harry a perfunctory duelists' bow. _Every fighting pair is so different that there can't be _that _many similarities between them._

"There is always room for improvement, of course," Weston said. "But from the look of things, you have not been sleeping well." Draco bit his tongue so that he wouldn't say one cause of that was Lowell and Weston and their bloody early-morning-on-Saturday lessons. "Go away and rest. For your next lesson, we will expect you to have figured out the basics of the trick we used when we tossed our wands to each other." She turned her back on them and walked to the door of the room, as if she were tired of watching them.

Lowell lingered, his eyes expertly studying every move they made. Harry finished stretching quickly and cast the charms that dried his sweat, then hurried away. Draco wasn't surprised, though he would have enjoyed a bit more of his company. Harry had told him that he was having to write his essay for the Spell Lexicon class over again. Though they'd had only one meeting with Aran, where he'd spent most of the time talking about how honored they should feel to be his trainees, he seemed to expect better work out of them than he did of the other students.

Draco actually didn't mind that. If Aran was demanding now, he had promised to repay the effort they put into their work soon.

"Trainee Malfoy."

Draco glanced up, surprised. Lowell was gliding towards him as if he were a snake and Draco a timely-spotted bird. Draco took up his wand instinctively, then remembered that Lowell couldn't want to duel him without his partner around.

Of course, maybe he was going to attack for other reasons. One never knew who might be corrupted or possessed by Nihil. Draco lowered his wand again, but kept a careful watch on the instructor.

Lowell's face was grave, but he simply studied Draco for a time without saying anything. Draco glanced around just in case. Sure enough, Weston was gone. He felt a stab of worry he couldn't explain. What was so grave that Lowell needed to explain it to Draco without _his _partner, as well as without Harry's presence?

"We told you last week," Lowell said, his voice calm and deep, "the barrier between you caused by lack of communication was mostly gone."

Draco nodded, mystified. "Has it returned?"

Lowell shook his head. "There is part of it that has not dissipated, and it should have moved by now, as much time as you have spent together. Tell me, did you share your secrets equally? Auror Weston, who is more sensitive than I am to such things, thinks the barrier thickest on Trainee Potter's side, and I am inclined to trust her perceptions."

Draco paused. There had been so much happening since that day when he and Harry had finally spoken, and Harry had been so much more open and caring, that Draco hadn't thought about it in detail.

But yes, the conversation had been focused on him. He had been the one to confess his love, his longing for power, his feelings against Mudbloods, and Harry had listened and reacted and encouraged him past those beliefs he obviously felt were barriers, but he had not really offered any confidences of his own.

"I think it should be," Draco said. "We have shared things, and it _seems _right, but it's true that he might be keeping secrets from me." Exasperation built up in him like ice as he spoke. What was so horrible that Harry would think he had to keep it from Draco? Probably another of those sores of his past that his sensitivity exaggerated. He would think that some feelings he'd had years ago were too horrible to confess, or he would say something about Draco's longing for power. Any and all of those were possible candidates. Draco sighed. "I'll talk to him."

"Do so."

Lowell's voice was so grave that Draco blinked and looked up at him. "Is something wrong, sir?"

"I think that this secret may be graver than you know." Lowell gave him an inscrutable look. "If my partner's talent with barriers extends to telling who creates them, my talent extends to telling how troublesome they are. The barrier was originally ordinary; it blocked your magic, and therefore it had to be dealt with. But now it has grown darker, for lack of a better word." Lowell shook his head. "Someone should have invented the vocabulary for this already," he murmured. "Unfortunately, compatible magic is little studied." He refocused on Draco. "Yes, his secret is a dark one."

Draco went his way with his nerves jangling like plucked wires. What in the world was Lowell talking about? Perhaps the Dark Arts, but Draco couldn't imagine Harry using the Dark Arts for any reason. Nor was there any indication that Harry was changing in the way that most people who used the Dark Arts did: longing for power like Draco, talking only about that subject for hours at a time. If anything, Harry seemed unusually dedicated to his classwork and to taking care of Draco lately—

Draco paused.

_Unless that's part of a cover to keep me from suspecting something._

His hand closed into a fist. If Harry had been lying to him, and doing it well enough that Draco had not suspected anything wrong, that would _hurt_.

In the meantime, Draco had to watch.

*

Harry murmured the spell over again. It was a spell he had learned in one of the books he'd read last year while studying for Offensive and Defensive Magic, and it had taken him some time this year to best use it, because he'd had to substitute "necromancy" for "potions" in the original incantation. The Latin hadn't been right at first, or so Harry had decided when the spell produced no result. Now he had it right, and it should show him any books on necromancy among Snape's collection.

_Draco's books, now. Snape left them to him. You really shouldn't be doing this. How would Draco feel if he knew?_

Harry felt his face burn, but it was a sensation he experienced from a distance, like the guilty thought. He was more involved in watching to see if any of the books glowed.

Draco wouldn't like it, yes. But Harry had decided that he would just have to do what he could to help the dead, and then make it up to the living later. He had more _time _to make it up to the living. Though Harry couldn't explain why, the feeling of a deadline pressed on him when he thought about making it up to the dead. If a certain period passed, he believed he would never have another chance.

_That could be true. Next year, when the training is even more intense, or later in this term, when Aran starts making us work harder…_

Harry shivered, and watched.

A single book was glowing, one in black leather—of course—that Draco had stood up on a shelf between the bed and the bathroom. Harry walked slowly towards it, wondering if it was trapped, and then reminded himself that Draco would have sensed any traps and dissipated them before now. He didn't want the books to shock or hurt Harry if he touched them while Draco was out of the room.

_You can trust him, and he can't trust you._

Like all the thoughts that Harry had had about Draco in the last few days, it was a thing to brood over, feel bad about—and ignore. Harry reached out and started to pick up the book. It had neither title nor author, he noticed.

Then he heard Draco's footsteps in the corridor.

In a panic, Harry shoved back from the shelf, fell on the bed, and saw the book tilting to fall after him. He quickly whispered a Sticking Charm so it would stay up there. The last thing he needed was for Draco to walk in and find him with the book on his chest.

The door opened. Harry rolled over and tried to smile up at Draco sleepily, as though his coming had awoken Harry from a nap.

"I thought you would be in the library," Draco said, turning around to shut the door with unusual slowness. Was he injured? Harry had thought he'd taken a heavier blow in the Combat class the other day than Morningstar really should have allowed without a healing spell. "Change your mind?"

"Yes," Harry said. "I've been feeling more tired than usual lately for some reason." He yawned elaborately. "Of course, waking up at seven for Lowell and Weston doesn't help," he added, with a grumble that he knew would sound realistic. Draco almost hadn't hauled himself out of bed in time this morning.

"Oh."

That was all Draco said, before he walked across the room, picked up a book from his own tottering stack, and sat down to read it. After a moment, he pulled out parchment and a quill from a different pile and moved over to the table in the center of the room, where he started taking notes on the book.

Harry blinked. The flat tone seemed to indicate something was wrong, but Draco hadn't moved like he was injured when he bent down, and his face was closed-off. He could just be concentrating intently. Harry had learned not to disturb him when he did that.

_Draco, what is it? _

The sentence formed in his head so easily.

And still Harry couldn't force it past his lips. In the end, he forced himself to start writing the essay that was due on Monday in the Spell Lexicon class instead. It was a struggle, because his thoughts wanted to fix on either Draco or the necromancy book, and he wouldn't let them.

Draco would tell Harry what was wrong in his own time. Since they removed the barrier from their compatible magic, he had been more open, and had even confessed a few minor problems Harry would never have guessed at, so good was Draco at hiding his emotions. Harry just had to trust that the same thing would happen this time.

And he could always pick up the necromancy book some other time when Draco was gone.

*

"From what I have learned," Pushkin said, "Nemo bred these beasts out of nothing, they came from nowhere, and nothing like them has ever existed."

Draco looked around the table at the other members of the Fellowship. Good. He wasn't the only one who looked as if he wanted to kill Pushkin.

"You must have learned _something_," Ketchum said, apparently because he willed it to be true.

"And we know that it's not true the beasts resembled nothing," Granger said. "The one that attacked us in the corridor looked like a dragon. There were others that resembled lizards, or chimeras, or griffins. So he had to have used a mold of some kind for them, shouldn't he? Even if he didn't use normal animals?"

Despite himself, Draco had to admit Granger had a point. He smiled reluctantly at her, but she didn't notice. All her attention was focused on Pushkin.

When Draco looked back at him, he realized something he should have remembered earlier: always observe the Observations instructor. Pushkin had something else to impart, if the way he smiled was any indication. His hands were folded together calmly on the table in front of him, but the thumb of one stroked swiftly across the back of the other. Draco had seen him do that on days when he was about to give exams.

_He has something else to say. _Draco settled back in his chair and waited for Pushkin to stop being stupid and smug and get on with things.

When Pushkin had had enough of silence, or perhaps had bored himself, he said, "The animals are formed from normal creatures after all, but they are disguised not to look like it. They have been through the process that Nihil and Nemo discovered which brings people back and beyond death. Death has been flushed through their veins, and that changed their nature enough that the ordinary spells I cast on the corpses could not recognize their parents. But now I know how to distinguish an animal touched by such a process from an ordinary experimental animal. I can isolate the nothing and turn it into something."

Harry gave a little gasp next to Draco. Draco shot him a quick glance. That was the kind of gasp he would have expected of Granger, who instead sat in reverent silence, watching Pushkin with shining eyes; to be frank, Draco wasn't sure that Harry would have understood Pushkin's explanation. He barely understood it himself.

Harry locked his shaking hands together a moment later and gave Draco a small smile. Draco didn't believe that smile, but Portillo Lopez was speaking now, voice high and quick, and he didn't have the time to question Harry about it.

"You know how to identify that process?" she said. "Do you understand what it is? How to counter it?"

"Eventually, I will," Pushkin said, peering at Portillo Lopez as if her excitement were a compliment to him. "For the moment, I can only identify an expanse of nothingness in the bodies of these particular beasts. Identifying it as a thing in and of itself in the bodies of humans is still far off."

Portillo Lopez leaned back with her eyes shut and her hands folded over each other. Her lips moved in what might have been a prayer.

_What's her part in this? _Draco wondered, and then decided that he didn't care, at least for right now. He already had one person to watch and figure out. Portillo Lopez would be an unnecessary distraction.

"This, combined with the information about Caradoc Dearborn that Potter and Malfoy brought us, makes me hopeful." Ketchum leaned forwards and nodded at all of them one by one, perhaps assuming that his notice was the only thing they lacked after such good news. Annoyingly, Draco felt a sunburst of satisfaction flare to life in his chest.

"But where do the unicorn ghosts that Trainees Potter and Malfoy reported fit in?" Hestia Jones tugged on one curl of her frizzy hair and looked from one to the other of them. _She's so stupid that she probably thinks someone has been able to discover the clue to that puzzle already, _Draco thought scornfully.

"We don't know yet," said Ketchum. "But until phantom unicorns start attacking people, I won't worry much about it. We have Nihil and Nemo and Nusquam on our minds instead. We need a battle plan."

Pushkin began to object that they couldn't do anything until he understood the process of traveling beyond death better; otherwise, their enemies would simply melt away from them and take new bodies, as he believed Nemo had done. Draco didn't listen to that, or Ketchum's spirited replies, or the interjections Granger occasionally made. Ordinarily, he would have been interested in a debate on theory, but he had to be practical for right now.

Weasley and Harry were having a soft-voiced argument. Draco pretended to wait breathlessly for Granger's convoluted sentences, while in reality casting a charm with his wand under the table so that their voices became more distinct.

"You were supposed to meet us for dinner last night," Weasley said. "Where were you?"

Draco arched his eyebrows. The dinner with his friends was the excuse Harry had fed him when Draco asked if he wanted to eat together last night. Harry had been apologetic and had managed to look the picture of realism when he admitted that it was terrible his friends still didn't trust Draco.

A burning sensation like a firework invaded Draco's gut.

_I can't trust him at all anymore._

"I got dizzy on the way to the eating hall," Harry said. He ducked his head and stared at his hands. Draco wondered if Weasley knew him well enough to tell the signs of a lie. "I thought I might have a fever. I was going to find Portillo Lopez, but then I remembered the way she fussed last year." He rolled his eyes. "So I returned to our rooms. And the dizziness left after a little while. Then Draco and I…" He let the words trail off and gave Weasley a significant look. Weasley promptly turned green.

"No need to say more, mate," he said weakly. "I think I understand."

_I'm your shield against them, am I? _Draco curled his fingers hard enough into the edge of the table that it jolted, and Ketchum and Granger looked at him. He didn't care. _Harry, what the fuck are you hiding?_

"Is something wrong, Trainee Malfoy?" Ketchum had a look of concern on his face that Draco was sure was false.

"No, Auror," said Draco, and smiled at Harry when Harry turned around to look at him. Harry smiled back and squeezed his hand under the table.

_Two can play at the lying game, Harry. Two of us can speak wide-eyed little deceptions and pretend that we care about each other when we're really pursuing our own ends._

"I'm glad you're fine," Harry whispered.

_And I'm better at it than you are._

*

Harry laid his new book down on the floor next to him and studied the ritual one last time. Yes, it was amazingly simple—so simple that Harry was really surprised his first book on necromancy hadn't included it. It didn't require expensive props or an elaborate circle. Harry just had to be prepared to give up blood so that he could speak with one of the spirits he was trying to bring back to life.

_What's that, when I've spilled so much of it already?_

He rested the knife—an ordinary knife, unlike the one he'd had to conjure for his last ritual—against his left palm and waited until his heartbeat calmed down. The book said that it would be best if he was relaxed before he made the cut, because panic would induce him to try and close the wound before he had all the blood he needed. The advice made sense to Harry.

_Why can't all our textbooks be that clear? _Harry had spent hours struggling with the Spell Lexicon book and swearing at it for not including clear definitions of the terms it wanted him to use. He would definitely ask Aran about that at their next meeting.

He pressed the knife down, and the skin parted before the blade. Harry had to saw deep; this was a knife from the eating hall, meant to cut bread and not meat. But he had a respectable cut and a good amount of blood dripping before long. He began to walk in a circle, holding his hand out so the blood dripped as evenly as possible.

All the time it spread, he concentrated on the image of Sirius. He had called him up once before, or at least the vision of him, at Grimmauld Place, and he was probably the one Harry missed most. Harry had been most responsible for his death, after all, and so Sirius should really be the first one he brought back to life.

When he finished, the circle of blood was lopsided, but present. Harry smiled as he cast a Numbing Charm on the wound. The book had said that it was his will that really sealed the circle, not chalk or salt or even the blood itself. The dead would feel how much he was willing to give up to bring them back to the world and would draw near of their own accord.

He stepped back and closed his eyes, trying to picture the tunnel the book had talked about. To this author, the world of the dead wasn't some vast and silent Sea that the spirits had to float out of. Instead, the worlds of the dead and the living were only separated by a thin barrier, but a necromancer had to envision a tunnel as projecting through that barrier, a hole of warm black air with light at one end and darkness at the other. That was the tunnel he would send his voice through to summon the listeners.

_Not that I'm really a necromancer, _Harry reassured himself as he began to call. _Just that this is the best way to make up for the wrongs I did._

He thought hard of Sirius, of everything he knew about him: the place where his name had been burned from the Black family tapestry, how he'd been Sorted into Gryffindor, the way he'd looked in Snape's Pensieve, the startled look on his face as he fell through the veil, the sharp way he hugged, his Animagus form. And slowly, a mist that he hadn't tried to consciously picture seemed to rise from his body and reach out through the tunnel that he _was _trying to picture to the mind on the other end.

_Sirius Black, _Harry called, and then repeated it, feeling the name almost wrenched from him by the demands of the spell. More memories of Sirius were sleeting through his head now, memories that he thought he hadn't tried to call, memories that weren't his. _Sirius Black! The world of the living requires you!_

The air in Catherine Arrowshot's old room turned so cold that, when Harry opened his eyes, his fingers had already gone blue. He shivered and wished he could cast a Warming Charm, but that might disrupt the delicate pattern of frost growing along the walls.

And the blue swirl slowly coming to life in the middle of the circle.

Harry caught his breath. Yes, this was different from the vision he'd seen in Grimmauld Place, and it was the real thing. The balance of magic changed in the room, and Harry felt a faint echo that might be Sirius's magical signature. He smelled the scent of a wet dog, and saw the familiar face form on top of the blue swirl. Then his body shimmered and changed into Sirius.

Sirius stood there with his eyes closed. Harry wondered for a moment why he wasn't breathing, and then remembered that he hadn't called him back into a body yet, just here as a ghost. He didn't need to breathe.

Moments passed, and Sirius didn't look at him. But Harry was patient. The book had said that it might take a while for the spirit to make sense of the transition from the world of the dead to the world of the living.

The door blasted open.

Harry spun around, staring in spite of himself. Something—his sudden movement, the startled breath he took, his lack of concentration—made the balance waver, and when he looked up, the frost was melting from the walls and the spirit was melting in lazy spirals from the center of the circle.

Harry might have turned back and tried to summon Sirius again. He was already cursing the instincts that made him turn towards every source of noise because it could be dangerous.

He might have done that, except that he was staring at Draco in the doorway.

Draco's eyes went to the circle of blood and the traces of cold on the walls, and then came back to Harry.

"What the fuck are you doing?" he breathed, and there was anger enough in his voice to make worlds break.


	17. A Storm

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Seventeen—A Storm_

Draco didn't know exactly what Harry had been doing, but thanks to the chill in the air and the circle of blood on the floor, he could guess. There were several kinds of Dark Arts that required blood. They didn't bring cold into the room with them, though. It was a rare kind of Dark magic that would. Most of them conveyed warmth, as though the wizards who had designed the spells didn't want to scare off too many potential victims too soon.

This was necromancy.

_How could he._

The thought fell dead in his mind, not even a question. Draco stared at Harry, at the book open on the floor beside him, which he thought he recognized as a book from his own library, and could say nothing more.

His expression must have been enough. Harry began to shift, casting glances at the circle and the melting frost on the walls as though he wished he could clean it up, and erase what had been happening by erasing the evidence.

_Nothing can change this, _Draco thought, beginning to move slowly forwards. He didn't know exactly what would happen when he reached Harry, but he knew that the force of his own conviction was drawing him steadily on. He could no more have disobeyed the urge than he could have closed the door and left Harry to his bloody rituals. _Nothing can destroy this, or make this not have happened, or make it any better._

His breath was beginning to pass more rapidly in and out of his lungs, and his hands were clenching into fists.

"Look, Draco," Harry said, and Draco thought his voice was nervous, if nothing else. _Good, _Draco thought, prowling closer to him. _It should be at least that. _"This isn't what you might think it is."

_So it's going to be more lies._

The fire that sprang to life within him then—bursting through him, searing his veins from the inside out, charring his hope—decided Draco on his course of action, too. He reached up, grabbed Harry by the shoulders, and began to shake him so hard that his teeth rattled together and his lips flapped.

Harry uttered a garbled protest and grabbed Draco's wrists as though he was going to wrench his hands away. But Draco was talking now, and Harry had better listen if he knew what was good for him.

"I trusted you. I told you the truth. I let you know what was happening in my life when it would have been so much easier to keep it all to myself." Draco was gasping and panting through the words now, but that didn't matter, because Harry was giving him the sort of transfixed expression that told Draco he was taking in every word. "I gave you _everything_. And you kept _this _from me, and all the time you were in league with Nihil."

Harry closed his fingers down on Draco's wrists in a gesture that seemed to be pure shock. "I'm _not _in league with Nihil," he snapped, and he had the gall to look hurt and angry. "I'm using necromancy because—"

He stopped. Draco knew why. The admission was out between them now, hanging in the air, and there was no way that Harry could ever take it back.

Draco squeezed his shoulders once more and then tore his hands away and began to move around Harry, his breath rasping. Harry turned with him, eyes large and wary and still _angry_, as though that emotion had a right to belong to anyone in this room but Draco.

"Necromancy," Draco said. "Why? Just tell me that. Why?"

"Because there are so many people who are dead," Harry said, and from the passion in his voice, Draco thought he'd probably been wanting to talk about this for a long time but had been denying himself. _Not that I care, _Draco decided viciously. _If he'd talked about this to me the moment he had the stupid idea, then we could have avoided every bit of this. _"They died in the war or they died before that. And they had so little time, or they had so little time when they weren't being hunted and persecuted. My godfather, Sirius Black. I've told you about him. He suffered so much, Draco, and then he died because he was coming to rescue _me_, because I'd done something stupid—"

"And the way you thought you'd repay him for his sacrifice was by doing something else stupid?" Draco had to stop and stare at Harry; there was just no other action that would adequately convey when he was feeling. "You _don't _learn, do you?"

Harry flushed. "It wasn't stupid," he said. "Not as long as I had the right rituals and did the right things."

"Which didn't include telling me," Draco said. The squeezing ball of hurt in the center of his chest tried to spill out his mouth then, and he wanted to tell Harry how much this had injured him, how at the moment he thought he would never trust anyone again. But he forced that hurt back. Harry would strike at him where he was vulnerable and try to force Draco to agree that his actions were rational if he thought Draco was weak and in pain. Far better to show the anger only.

"If I'd told you, you would have stopped me," Harry flung back.

"And that didn't tell you something right there?" Draco snapped his teeth on the last word, the closest he could come to his dreadful desire to bite Harry and force the point on him through blood and torn skin. "Something I disapproved of that strongly, some secret you couldn't share with me _or _your friends, was going to be something good?"

"You've always said I shouldn't take too much on myself," Harry said, and his new form of gall was to stand up straight and looked proud and noble and innocent. "I thought you'd say that this was another form of that, instead of just atonement I really wanted to do."

"It _is _another form of that," Draco said. He would have liked to seize Harry by the shoulders again, but this time he thought he would go far enough to hurt him, and he didn't want to do that—if he didn't have to. _Maybe it will come to that, because Harry doesn't seem to understand any other way. _"Don't you _see_? Who brings the dead back to life? Who feels so much guilt that they would _have _to do that, and who feels that the deaths of others are their fault?"

"Everyone feels like that," Harry said. He looked puzzled, confused, and hurt. "Don't you? Wouldn't you give a lot if you could bring Snape back to life somehow, because the way he died wasn't fair?"

"You're an idiot," Draco said, and he hissed the words because he wanted so much to scream them. "I'm sorry he died, but I'm not going to use Dark magic to bring him back to life. Why would I do that? It would be a betrayal of his sacrifice. He was the one who killed Dumbledore so that I wouldn't have to, so that I wouldn't have to hurt my soul by using Dark magic."

Harry blinked at him. "But you ended up using it anyway, when you used Cruciatus to torture people for Voldemort."

Draco clamped his hands onto his arms. He was sorry now that he had ever told Harry that. There wasn't any secret he had given up that Harry wouldn't turn against him, he thought, no way that Harry would ever _not _try to hurt him. That hurt almost more than the fact of Harry lying in the first place.

"It's not the same thing," he finally said. "And you're trying to make it be, which only shows how far you'll go to protect your dirty little secret." Shame and sorrow burned away in anger, and he leaned forwards. "Did it _ever _occur to you what would happen, if I found this out? Did you think that you were sacrificing my trust? Or was bringing back the dead all that mattered?"

The question he couldn't ask stung the back of his throat like bile. _Did you really love me? Or were you making it up, humoring me, first because you were sorry that I didn't have any friends and then because you wanted to use any books I had on necromancy?_

Harry shook his head. His eyes were faintly dazed, as though someone had hit him and he was trying to recover from the blow. Draco would have liked to think that his own questions were the blow, but he doubted it. If he was _that _powerful, then Harry would never have turned to necromancy in the first place, because he would have feared losing Draco's approval more than he evidently did. "That's not—look, Draco, I knew that what I was doing would hurt the living. But I was going to make it up to you, I swear. But I had to make it up to the dead, too. It was my fault they died."

"You're not listening to yourself," Draco said, his voice flat and calm, and he didn't know—although he wished he did—whether he was speaking the truth or simply a desire. "You _can't _be listening to yourself. Or you would know what you were saying was insane."

Harry shook his head, a faint, melancholy smile on his face. "Don't you see? That's the kind of thing that people want to believe. Because so few people ever think that they have a chance to make it up to the dead. Death is supposed to be the ending of pain and the forgiveness of debts. But if you had the ability to make up for your mistakes, then you would have to do it. People don't want to make the effort. They lie and they forget about necromancy, and they tell themselves so many comforting little lies that eventually everyone in the world accepts them as truth. Except the people whose guilt is stronger than their faith in the lies."

Draco's fingernails dug into the centers of his palms. It was an odd sensation, distant, as though his fingers had done it of their own free will. He had to work hard to free his tongue from the dry, dusty vault it seemed to occupy, the vault that had formerly been his mouth. "Well. It's nice to know that you think I'm lying all the time, and that you've managed to turn things around so that you're the innocent and determined one who wants to make up for his mistakes and I'm part of the problem."

Harry stirred uneasily again. "Draco," he said. "I didn't want to lie to you. I just had to."

Draco's temper burst the bounds that he'd been trying to impose on it, and he sprang at Harry across the distance that separated them. He knew, dimly, as he went, that he'd lost any chance of having a reasonable discussion with Harry.

On the other hand, it was starting to look as though Harry was beyond any kind of reasonable discussion, so Draco might as well hit him as hard as he could and find relief for one kind of pain, the intolerable, boiling tension building up in him.

He hit Harry in the chest first, so that Harry wheezed and bent over. He hadn't been expecting it, Draco thought, his mind whirling and spinning and spitting sparks as though it were a top that was frying the track it spun on. Even with all the words that Draco had said to him, he still hadn't thought it worthwhile to raise his defenses, because he had thought he could persuade Draco around to his point-of-view.

The second time, Draco hit Harry in the face, the jaw, a punch that Morningstar had been trying to get him to put all his force behind for months. She would be proud of him, Draco thought madly as he heard something in Harry's jaw pop.

Harry fell to the floor and rolled, and Draco wondered if he should be concerned. But the concern was a long way behind the constant thump of anger and fear and frustration in the forefront of his mind, so he just stepped forwards again.

Harry raised himself on his elbow. He had his wand out, and he pointed it at Draco with a hand that shook.

"I'll cast at you," he gasped. "I swear I will."

Draco stood still, but he sneered and said, "And have you forgotten that the compatible magic won't let us hurt each other? You're pathetic. You pretend to be so strong, but you can't even fight me. You have to use your wand instead, which I wasn't using because it wouldn't work _and _because I wanted to keep this fight on a minor level."

"I don't want to hurt you," Harry said.

"Then you've done everything _exactly wrong,_" Draco said flatly. He didn't know that he could get through to Harry now, so he would just say everything that came into his head. It would relieve his feelings, and that was the only thing he cared about right now. "You've lied to me, you've broken my trust, you've made me believe that I was stupid to say I loved you in the first place, and probably stupid ever to love you. How do I know that you weren't lying from the beginning? You probably were. You have such a misplaced sense of what you're responsible for, you probably saw people treating me poorly and decided that you would help me out just because you were sorry for me. And maybe you wanted me to look up at you with big grateful eyes and worship you like people did in school, too."

Harry's voice cracked. Draco saw the devastation on his face, and rejoiced. _This _was getting through to him in a way that Draco's previous words hadn't. "I didn't—I never felt that way. I never enjoyed the attention."

"I notice you're not denying the other accusations." Draco would still have liked to hit Harry—the bruise flaring along his jaw was huge, but not big enough—but he hadn't forgotten how to cut someone down with words. "You don't care about me, do you? Not the way you care about your precious dead."

"No, I do, I do!" Harry said. His free hand scrabbled uselessly at the floor. Draco wondered what he was looking for, and then told himself he didn't care. Nothing mattered about Harry anymore except the way he had tried to hurt Draco. "I meant it when I said I loved you. I do! I want to help you. I want to be with you. I'm sorry I hurt you."

Draco waited a moment, then cupped a hand around his ear. "What's that?" he asked brightly. "_More _lies? Why, yes, I believe so!"

Harry stared at him with eyes that were overly bright, though Draco wasn't sure whether he was about to shed tears. He wasn't sure of anything, he told himself brutally. All those little secrets he'd thought he'd discovered about Harry, whether he'd been told them or learned them on his own—they were worthless. How did he know what was true? If Harry could keep a secret of this magnitude from him, he could keep anything.

"I'm not lying," Harry whispered.

"But how do I know that?" Draco countered swiftly, and watched with satisfaction as hot as lava while Harry paled. "Nothing you say can be trusted. You were just spouting the most ridiculous shite as if you believed it. You always want to _save _people. You were going to _bring back the dead _because making up for your mistakes and preserving your precious reputation as the Savior of Everything is more important than not practicing Dark magic. Fuck, Harry! Why am I supposed to believe you now?"

Harry blinked again and again. He couldn't be blinking against tears, Draco thought—not genuine tears. They would only be tears of self-pity, if anything, because he had been stopped from doing something else that would make him seem like a hero.

"I never meant to hurt you," Harry breathed, and this time he didn't seem to think that Draco would believe him if he said it. It sounded like the last gasp of a broken machine.

Draco ran a shaking hand through his hair. The problem with expressing your anger, he found, was that once it was gone, it left you nothing to support you.

Except weariness. And disgust. And a sadness that made him want to curl up and weep, except that he would be weak if he did that, and he needed to despise Harry rather than himself.

"I'm not going to be your partner anymore," he said.

More blinking. Harry really didn't seem to know what was going on, and that disappointed Draco, because he _wanted _the git to know, and suffer. But he spoke the words anyway, in the hope that they would linger in Harry's mind and make their impact later.

"I don't want to fight next to someone who lies to me and can't even be honest about his own impulses towards Dark magic," Draco said. He started for the door, then paused and Summoned the necromancy book. He wasn't going to leave that with Harry. In fact, he would search their rooms, because he thought it would be a long time before Harry dared to show his face there, and find any other books that he might have hidden. He'd destroy or hide them. Maybe he should give them to the Fellowship. There was a faint chance that they might help them understand what Nihil was doing.

_Harry's doing what Nihil did._

The thought made Draco feel faint and sick, and fuck, this was the kind of accusation he would _never _have believed if he hadn't seen Harry in the middle of a ritual for himself.

"Draco."

He probably shouldn't have turned around. After all, he'd heard the kind of weak justifications that Harry tended to serve up when he believed himself in the right. But because he was a fool, he turned around and reluctantly looked at Harry, muscles braced tight against another disappointment.

Harry held out a hand towards him. Draco's heart wrenched, but then he thought about the way Harry had betrayed him and how even this gesture might just be another way that he would use to go on practicing necromancy, and his heart froze instead.

"I didn't mean to do this," Harry whispered.

Draco jerked his head at the circle of blood, powerless now but not completely dry, never taking his eyes off Harry. "This looks pretty bloody deliberate to me."

"I meant—" Harry shut his eyes. "I never meant to hurt you. That was the only thing I was talking about."

Draco took a deep breath. He almost asked Harry if he meant to give necromancy up now, meant to stop.

But the words froze like his heart, because he had just remembered that he couldn't trust the answer even if Harry gave one.

He turned around and left without waiting for a response.

*

_You've fucked up now, and Draco's left you for good._

Harry didn't remember when he'd put his head into his hands. It seemed like forever. His face felt a little better if he hid it.

He wished he could do the same thing for the rest of his body, but it was no good. His chest felt hollow with its heart gone, and his arms were chilled and shaking. Even his hands felt cold where his cheeks and forehead rested against them.

_How could I have done that?_

He honestly hadn't realized how much his necromancy would _hurt _Draco. He'd kept it secret because he knew Draco would accuse him of wanting to make up for too much, which he had, and he would be upset that Harry was doing Dark magic. And he knew that Draco wouldn't understand his intense need to rescue the dead no matter how much he explained it. He'd thought that Draco might even resent the time Harry was spending on the rituals, rather than with him.

But he hadn't realized he was destroying Draco's trust.

_I can't even tell him that, because he doesn't believe a word I say._

Harry shivered and finally dragged himself back up again. He looked at the circle of blood, and he still did wish he could see Sirius spinning to life in the middle of it. Because he knew necromancy was wrong, and he knew he had disappointed Draco, maybe alienated him forever, and he knew that he never should have kept this a secret, but spoken about it with Draco in the first place.

But one thing no one could tell him. Even taking his necromancy book away just made it a harder question to answer.

How in the world was he supposed to make up for his mistakes to the dead now?

There didn't seem to be a way. They would just remain in the darkness, forever unavenged, forever without bodies or justice.

Harry took a step away. He was still shivering. He put his hand to his head and frowned. There seemed to be a heaviness in the back of it that was strange, as though he'd opened the top of his skull and packed his brain with rocks. And he couldn't hear well. The silence around him was punctuated by the sounds. They tore through it like knives tearing through heavy canvas.

Then the memory seized him.

_He was lying in bed the night after he destroyed Dumbledore's office, the night after Sirius died, his eyes wide and tearless and staring up at the ceiling. The broken mirror rested on the table beside him. He'd had it all along. He could have communicated with Sirius and asked him if he was all right. He could have escaped the consequences of being responsible for Sirius's death. Sirius might still be grumbling in Grimmauld Place how no one ever let him do anything._

_Grief tore into him, its claws longer than he remembered, and anger, and hatred—he was going to make Bellatrix _pay—_and pain. And he still couldn't cry. And soon he would be going back to the Dursleys', where he could never cry._

The pain was as real and as present as though he was living it over again. Harry shook, his heart laboring in his chest, his mind grey and dizzy with tears.

When he opened his eyes again, the ceiling looked as strange as the silence had felt before. He lay there, licking his lips, coming to terms with what this meant.

He'd had a fit—his first in over a year.

Harry lay still and let the memory leave him, and thought of the way he and Draco had searched through the library of Malfoy Manor and hadn't been able to find a cause for those fits. Draco had believed it must have something to do with his magical core. Still, no information they found seemed a whole explanation, and the intriguing partial explanations that were _almost _like the fits didn't lead anywhere.

Harry braced a hand on the floor beneath him and levered himself slowly back to his feet.

He thought he understood the cause of the fits now.

They were caused by his grief for the dead, his guilt taking itself out on him the only way it could, because he couldn't make up for what he'd done. The fits had stopped when he became more interested in Draco than he was in the dead, and then, even when he was hurting Draco, they hadn't come back because the necromancy was a way to deal with his grief and guilt and atone at last.

With both those protections gone…

Harry smiled bitterly.

_I'm probably going to die of them._

He kept one hand on the wall as he slowly stumbled out of the room, barely remembering to turn back at the door and banish the circle of blood from the floor. All the time, his mind was working, dry and savage and remarkably clear.

Draco had been partially right. The fits came from his magical core. The memories couldn't be that clear and powerful without a magical component.

Harry's magic was punishing him for what he'd done wrong, because no one else would do so.

_I can't tell Draco, either, because he wouldn't believe me. And I've hurt him enough already._

As he limped down the corridor, heading for Ron's rooms—he doubted Draco would want to stay in the same small space with him—Harry decided, carefully, that he was fucked.


	18. Aftermath

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Eighteen—Aftermath_

"But why aren't you and Malfoy sharing your rooms anymore?" Ron stood in the doorway of his rooms, more flabbergasted than Harry had thought he would be, his arm blocking the entrance. Harry wondered if Hermione was somewhere in there, perhaps naked, and that was the reason Ron seemed so eager for him to get out. Ron hadn't stopped staring at the bruises on his face so far, but hadn't asked about them.

"We had a row," Harry repeated uncomfortably. He wished he could say something else, but the truth would make Ron and Hermione reject him in the same way as Draco had, and Harry couldn't—couldn't take that right now. He needed _someone _to talk with, someone who wouldn't look at him like he was a monster.

"What about?" Ron was relentless.

Harry sighed. It seemed he would have to tell the truth after all, because he didn't have a lie prepared, and that was essential when he wanted someone to actually _believe _his lies instead of tearing through them like damp cloth.

_It's probably best that I should bear the consequences. I don't deserve to have people comfort me, not knowing what I did._

"Something important," he said. "Something we shouldn't talk about in the corridors." He looked uneasily over his shoulder. It was strange, but ever since he had left Arrowshot's rooms, he had felt as though someone was following him, staring at the back of his head with cold eyes. He'd cast every detection charm he could think of, and they had shown him nothing, but he would still feel better if he had private walls around him.

Ron took the hint and let him in. Harry collapsed into one of the chairs and closed his eyes, wondering if it would have been better if he had never fallen in love with Draco, never left his best friend to move in with his lover.

Then he shook his head. _No, I still love him, and my life is still richer for having known him._

_Even if it's not going to be much longer for having known him._

"What was it?" Ron asked quietly from a short distance away. He sounded subdued and impressed, as though something in Harry's posture or expression had told him how serious this was.

Harry sighed and opened his eyes. "You know that I've always been sorry about Sirius's death," he said. "And—others." He thought it would probably be suicidal to mention Fred to Ron right now.

Ron nodded. His wrinkled forehead and half-squinted eyes said that he had no idea what was coming next.

"I wanted to find some way to make up for their deaths," Harry said. "I wanted—well, it doesn't matter anymore. It would sound stupid if I tried to excuse it. But I found a necromancy book in that Death Eater cache we went through last term. I started practicing some of the rituals, because I wanted to bring them back."

Ron said nothing. Harry looked up—and when had he glanced down at his own hands as if they were the most fascinating things in creation, anyway?—to find Ron staring at Harry with an expression of horror so complex that Harry didn't think he could understand all of it right now.

"Mate," Ron said at last. "_Nihil_?"

"I don't work for him," Harry said. "I'm not like him. You can parade me in front of the Fellowship and ask them to check my magical core for his infection, if you want. But I did want to bring the dead back to make it up to them."

"Make _what _up to them?" Ron had risen to his feet now and was pacing back and forth in front of his chair, as if this revelation was too important to sit down through. "It's not as though you did anything but _see _them die."

"And not even that, for some of them," Harry muttered, thinking of Remus and Tonks. "But you're wrong about Sirius, Ron. He wouldn't have died if I hadn't thought it was such a great idea to go to the Department of Mysteries. And as for the others—I didn't save them either, did I?"

"But no one says that you _have _to," Ron said helplessly. "That was just _Daily Prophet _rubbish, all that nonsense about you being the Chosen One and how you should have saved all the people in the war if you really were. They didn't know about the prophecy or the Horcruxes and how you worked through them. Why are you listening to people like that?"

Harry tried to smile. It was painful, as though he was using muscles that he had left to atrophy for years. "If it started like that, it's not that way now," he said. "The guilt is part of me, mate. I need to save people. I need to help them. There's nothing else that will make up for my mistakes."

Ron hesitated. Then he said, softly, "I never thought I'd say this. I'm not Hermione. But you need to talk to a Mind-Healer."

Harry snorted. "We talked about that after the war, remember? And when I contacted St. Mungo's, we were reassured about privacy, and I was getting owls from the _Daily Prophet _not five minutes later. Who would I be able to trust to keep quiet about this?"

"Maybe don't tell them who you are?" Ron suggested helplessly. "Go in under a glamour?"

"Then I'd have to lie," Harry said. "And it would be worse than useless to try to get a Mind-Healer to help me for someone else's problems. Why waste the Galleons?"

He hoped that would get a faint smile out of Ron, at least, but Ron just looked more distressed. He ran his hand through his hair, paced in a circle, gave Harry a look, and blurted out, "I don't know what to _do_! I thought I was the official Harry-fixer, and now I don't know what to do."

"Offer me shelter here, if you can," Harry said quietly. "Draco doesn't want me back, and I don't blame him." He looked at his hands again.

Ron waited for a long time. Harry didn't know what he was thinking, and he didn't look up to try and find out. He needed these moments to breathe and get himself under control. He knew he could master the pain and the anger and the helplessness—he knew he shouldn't do necromancy anymore, but what could he _do_ to make it up to the dead if he didn't do that?—and present a cheerful face to the world. Or at least a neutral one. He had managed to do that when people thought he was the Heir of Slytherin and when he lived with the Dursleys and when he was in the Triwizard Tournament and a lot of people suspected him of cheating to put his name in the Goblet. He could do it again.

_But this time, I don't know if it'll end, _he thought dismally.

Then he wanted to laugh at himself. _Of course it'll end sometime. If Draco wants so much distance from you that you never get back together, then you'll recover from losing him just like you did from losing Ginny. Pain doesn't kill you._

_But it sure aches while it lasts._

"You can stay here," Ron said at last, "providing that you tell Hermione the truth about what happened. She's going to want to know." He paused a minute. "And you'll have to put up with her lectures, too, you know."

Surprised, Harry looked up. He really hadn't expected that many concessions for such a small price. "And not yours?"

Ron shrugged. His smile was wistful.

"I would do almost anything to have Fred back, too," he said quietly. "I've had wild dreams, and nightmares. I understand the temptation." Then his face hardened. "But you can't do it _anymore_, mate."

"Understood." Harry reached out and clasped Ron's hand, glad that he had someone who could stand by him, and who was probably nosy enough that it wouldn't be easy to go back to necromancy.

_Maybe he can even help me figure out what the fuck I'm going to do about helping the dead and making up for my mistakes now._

*

To say that Draco was surprised when Granger knocked on his door was an understatement.

He looked over her shoulder, expecting to see a cowering Harry, or a defiant one, or an apologetic one. He had his responses prepared for all three. He was never going to trust Harry again, so he would throw his apologies back in his teeth, and—

But Harry wasn't there. Granger just nodded and bustled in so efficiently that it took Draco a moment to remember that he hadn't actually invited her in.

He turned around, and watched her gathering up Harry's robes and books (minus the necromancy one that Draco had found and burned) and rarely-used comb and other things for a minute before he spoke.

"Did he tell you what happened?" Draco's voice was brittle. He told himself that he didn't care, not when it was Granger. He wouldn't have wanted to show a sign of weakness like that in front of Harry.

"Yes." Granger never paused from shrinking the things and tucking them into a trunk beside her, which Draco could have sworn wasn't there when she entered the room. "And it was _stupid _of him—" only in the way her voice flicked that word like a lash did Draco hear how angry she must be "—and you have every right to be angry." She frowned for a moment, as if trying to determine whether a dusty robe draped over a chair was Harry's, and then seemed to decide it was and cast a spell that made it rise into the air, shaking all the dust off it at once with a complex snap.

Draco waited. This was not at all like the confrontations he had anticipated between himself and Harry's friends. He had thought they would shout at him for condemning Harry out of hand, and he would yell back, presenting evidence of what he had done (because of course Harry wouldn't have told his friends the truth), and then they would turn on Harry and scold him together. And then—

Then what?

Draco had to admit that his imagination hadn't carried him that far.

Because it felt stupid to be standing there in silence, he clenched one hand into a fist and said, "What did Harry say about me?"

"Only that he'd broken your trust," Granger said, "and that you'd bruised him, and that he was sorry for it, and that you had the right to be angry." She shut the trunk lid and turned around as if expecting to walk out the door without giving him further information.

"And that's _it_?" Draco demanded. "He didn't tell you about the way he tried to defend himself?"

Granger forced her teeth together and a large puff of air out her nostrils at the same moment. "It was obvious how he intended to do that," she said. "He was going on about making up his mistakes to the dead. It's pathological with him. I know he was talking about that all through the last year before Auror training, reliving the memories of the war and visiting his godson Teddy Lupin a lot. Teddy's parents both died in the war," she added, as if she thought Draco might not have known that. "And then he seemed to forget about it. Both Ron and I thought he was getting over it. But I think the need was just slumbering, and when he found what he thought was an opportunity to save them, he took it."

"A _stupid _opportunity," Draco said.

Granger glanced at him over her shoulder, eyes absent. "Hmmm? Oh, of course it was. There's nothing about his actions from beginning to end of this that hasn't been stupid."

Again Draco found himself off-balance, feeling as though Granger should have said something more, something to prove that she'd absorbed the full force of Harry's crime. "And you believe him?" he asked.

"Believe what?" Granger tilted her head to the side. "He told me a lot of things that he didn't want to tell me. I yelled at him." She grimaced then as if she'd bitten into a rotten apple. "But yes, I'm satisfied that he's telling the truth now."

"How can you believe _anything _he says?" Draco meant to fold his arms and look calm and composed, but he ended up clapping his hands sharply together, his nails scraping, making a muffled sound. "He's lied about everything under the sun, and he'll only lie about more if you're stupid enough to show you trust him."

Granger put a hand on her hip and studied him with a long, slow gaze that made Draco feel as if he were the one being judged, instead of Harry. Then she shook her head and adopted a patient smile.

"I understand why you feel like that," she said. "Harry's destroyed the love affair that you had going, and that has to hurt." Draco bridled against the tone, but couldn't think of anything to say that would be worth interrupting her little parade of knowledge for. "But even _you_ believe some of the things he says. For example, you believed him when he said he'd been lying to you up until this point, and you believed him when he said he was using necromancy. I believe that, too, as well as other things. Some of us are more practiced in the game of trust than I think you are, Malfoy."

"That is _enormously _condescending," Draco said through white lips.

"I know." Granger extended one palm as if she was going to shake hands with him, then pulled it back. "Sorry," she added, with the first sign of embarrassment that Draco had seen from her. "But it's true. You have to accept some of what Harry's saying, or you might as well think that he did nothing wrong."

"What I mean," Draco said, deciding to haul the conversation back on track even if he had to do it by main force, "is that you're acting as though Harry's sorry for what he did, as if he means to stop using necromancy. How can you believe that? If he went to such lengths to conceal it so far, he's not likely to stop."

Granger was silent for some time, but Draco didn't think she was thinking about his words. She was looking for the best way to voice her disagreement, instead. Draco struggled against the urge to snarl. Was there no one who would listen to _his _side of the story, and realize the truth about _him_? Why should Harry be the one with eager ears hearing his words, and the defensive champions?

"I think this was an odd situation," Granger said at last. "The obsession with necromancy arose suddenly, but it touched on an old set of feelings. He wanted to do something to save the dead, but he'd had to put that desire aside because it seemed impossible to achieve it. And now, he finally thought he could. But he concealed it frantically, and that very fear implies that he knew it was wrong."

"Not wrong enough to stop," Draco said, with bitterness that he couldn't strangle. "Despite what we're fighting."

"For Harry, actions differ with motive," Granger said, giving Draco a curious look, as if to ask whether they didn't for him, too. "He wouldn't see what he and Nihil were doing as the same, because Nihil—as far as we know—is doing this for revenge, and bringing back the dead as servants. Harry, from what he said to me, really did want give the dead independent lives and new bodies, and then set them free of him."

"It doesn't work that way." Draco didn't know how she could stand there being _reasonable _about it.

"I know," Granger said. "And I think he was fighting against that realization all the time. The world of delusion he built was extremely fragile, because at heart Harry's a good person and doesn't like Dark magic. He's been even more friendly and obliging than usual these last few weeks. It was his way of making up for what he was doing." She snapped her fingers. "And now that delusion's been shattered like glass. There's no way he can reconstruct it—unless he's left alone again." Her eyes flashed. "And Ron and I don't plan to do that any time soon."

"All that care for him," Draco said. "And what about _me_?"

Granger blinked. "Did you want me to come by and speak to you about it? I could. I just didn't realize that you would like—"

"No, damn it!" Draco whirled away from her, ashamed that he was displaying so much emotion, and conscious at the same time that there really wasn't much he could do to control it. "I want Harry to apologize."

Another pause, and again Draco had the infuriating certainty that she was thinking up her disagreement instead of agreeing with him the way she should be. "Would that help?" she asked finally. "Since you don't believe anything Harry says anyway, would you believe an apology if he made it?"

Draco's spine burned. He clenched his teeth and fought the urge to chew through his own cheeks.

"That doesn't matter," he said. "He should still do it."

"He should do it because it's the right thing to do," Granger said. "But I doubt you care about that. You want it because it would help you. Or so you seem to be claiming. But Harry also said that you told him you would never trust him again. So why would this apology help?"

Draco turned back to face him. "You're very cool about this," he said, "for what your best friend was doing."

"This isn't the first illegal thing he's done," Granger said. "Or that we've helped him to conceal. Yes, it's horrible. Yes, I'm angry at him." She said it the same way she might have talked about her favorite kind of tea. "But yelling at him and kicking sand in his face isn't going to do any _good_. Staying with him and yelling at him if he tries to do it again will."

"You sound as if you blame me," Draco said. He couldn't speak about a whisper, but he hoped she didn't think that he was being tender to her or considerate of Harry's feelings because of that. He couldn't speak up any more because he was choked with rage.

"I'm sorry," Granger said, which startled Draco more than anything that had happened so far. "I don't mean to sound that way. But it's hard to explain what I mean." She thought again, her eyes turned inwards, and then added, "Besides, it sounds like you have what you want already. Harry's sorry, and his apology won't make it better because you don't believe him. You don't want to be partners with him anymore; Harry told us that, which is why I'm here to take his things away in the first place. What can he do that would make things better for you?"

"Nothing," Draco said.

"Well, then, I don't see how you can blame him for staying away," Granger said, and marched towards the door.

"He doesn't care about me, does he?" Draco called after her. The words were practically wrenched from his throat, even though he didn't want them to be. He had hoped that Harry's friends would share his anger and be unable to forgive Harry; he had not realized until now that he was _counting _on it. "He would come here and apologize again if he did."

Granger glanced back at him with something that looked like pity, but couldn't be, because Draco refused to accept that. "You don't really know Harry if you can think that, Malfoy," she said quietly. "He cares enough that he'll find it hard to forgive himself for hurting you—if he ever does. He doesn't think _his _mistakes can be forgiven. And he thinks that apologizing would you hurt you more. After all, you don't want to be partners, you don't want to be friends, and you regret that you ever trusted him. What can help that except for him to stay far away and not even try to make things up, because the crime was too great? It would be an insult to you and what he broke between you if he tried."

The door shut behind her.

Draco stared at the wall and wished he could say that he wanted an apology and to see Harry even if it wouldn't help, even if it would hurt more, because—

He couldn't work out what should follow _because._

*

"Mate? Are you all right?"

Harry shut his eyes. He'd had another fit in the bathroom, this time showing him the memory of seeing Remus's and Tonks's bodies in the Great Hall. He wasn't even _there _when they died. He didn't even _know_.

"Yeah," he called at last, tentatively, and hauled himself to his feet. "Just started brooding."

An understanding silence came from beyond the door. Ron seemed to think that staring at the walls and thinking your own thoughts was natural after a confrontation with an angry Hermione.

Harry winced as he started to brush his teeth. Hermione had let him have it, and he deserved every word of both hot anger and cold logic—which didn't make it easier to bear. And then she had started thinking of ways to help him instead, and volunteered to go get his things, and Harry was reminded again of what good friends they were to him.

_But there's nothing that can be done about these fits._

Harry shook his head at himself in the mirror. No escape, wherever he turned. No way to make things up to the dead. No way to make the fits stop. No way to tell Ron and Hermione the truth, because they would drive themselves mad, as they had already tried to do, coming up with alternatives to Harry's visiting a Mind-Healer.

The best he could do was to stay grateful to his friends, stay away from necromancy, and remain alert for opportunities that would let him make things up to Draco from a distance.

He glanced at himself in the mirror once more and wondered if he was feeling self-pity, if he should tell someone about the fits after all. But that would involve hurting Ron and Hermione again, and probably Draco when he found out that it was another thing Harry hadn't told him.

And he would hurt them if he stayed silent, too. Harry just didn't see any way to win.

His reflection changed and darkened. Harry blinked. He was probably tired and letting his eyes droop shut.

But it was hard to attribute the sight to his own tired gaze when the reflection wavered into another _face_.

It was Catherine Arrowshot's face. She stared at him, looking almost as she had the day she vanished, except that Harry had never seen her eyes so wide with terrified appeal. She stretched a hand towards him, and Harry reached up to take it without thinking.

His fingers touched cold glass. Arrowshot vanished.

What replaced her was a shimmering, slick golden haze that Harry had seen before. Nihil wore such a shapeshifting glamour, or had on the day that Harry had seen him meeting with the trainees and Arrowshot had disappeared.

Harry knew he should fall back into a defensive crouch and draw his wand. But he was too paralyzed by shock to do anything, as well as anger that Arrowshot might be this—being's—prisoner. He stood still and glared instead.

"Interesting," said Nihil, in a voice that had half a dozen harmonics in the space of one word, and his reflection disappeared, too. All Harry could see was the mirror now, his face pale, the scar standing out, his eyes far too dark.

Harry shut his eyes and rested his forehead against the glass.

Then he went out, to tell Ron and Hermione about the vision, because staying silent this time would hurt them more.


	19. Interacting

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Nineteen—Interacting_

"Trainee Potter." Aran held Harry back after the Spell Lexicon class, staring intently into his eyes. "I have something to say to you."

Harry nodded and gestured for Ron and Hermione, who were both hovering around him, to leave the classroom. It wasn't as though he could practice necromancy when Aran was right there.

Hermione left with several backwards glances. Ron was frowning deeply, but he seemed to have reached the same conclusion Harry had, because he didn't hesitate as much. In fact, he put a hand on Hermione's shoulder and said something that made her laugh.

Harry bit his lip and wished he wasn't so disgustingly jealous. Once, he'd had something like that with Draco.

_No, you didn't. You only thought you did, because he trusted you and you didn't give him reason to question you too closely._

Harry clenched the edge of his book tightly as he waited for Aran to speak. His conscience had been merciless since he'd been found out. Most of the time, it spoke in Hermione's voice, but it said things that Hermione wouldn't have tried to convince him of. Harry hated the sensation of an internal monitor in his head with words that shook him awake, lashed him down the corridors on his way to classes, and checked every movement he might have made to reconcile with Draco.

_Don't you think you've hurt him enough? Congratulations, you've officially hurt him more than Voldemort managed to. Quite an accomplishment._

Harry shook his head and focused on Aran. He'd done wrong, and he would have to accept that there was nothing he could do to make up for it, but sometimes, that was so _hard._

"Your work has been off in the class," Aran said, with his usual bluntness. He paced in front of Harry, slapping his right hand into his left palm. His eyes were intense enough that Harry winced when he thought of them paired up with the voice of his conscience. He would probably spend the rest of his life hunched at the foot of his bed and praying for forgiveness if that happened. "Nor have you responded adequately when I tried to train you privately. I demand to know what has happened."

The reminder dried Harry's throat of saliva for a moment. Of _course _the private session with Aran had been unproductive. Draco had been right there beside him, as cold and beautiful as a winter sun, and as unresponsive. He'd kept his face turned away the entire time, and spoken only to Aran. But when Harry happened to glance down, he'd seen Draco's fingers folded into a fist.

Draco only _looked _stoic. He was suffering on the inside.

That made Harry feel even worse, of course, and the words he had been trying to work up courage to speak died in his throat. What could he possibly have to say that Draco would want to hear?

"Draco and I had—a row," Harry said, when the sound of hand slapping palm reminded him that Aran was still waiting for an answer to his question. He swallowed and met the man's impatient eyes. "It's affected the way that we work together in all contexts." "Contexts" was a word that Hermione might have used, and Harry thought he could justly feel proud of it. Aran's eyes at least narrowed in consideration, the way they wouldn't have if Harry had tried an absolute lie.

"Well, reconcile," Aran said a moment later, as if it were that easy.

"I hurt him too badly for that, sir," Harry said simply.

"In my experience," Aran said, "all hurts can be forgiven." He was speaking in a clenched voice, his lips not quite covering his teeth, and Harry realized a moment later, with some astonishment, that he sounded as if he were speaking something he did not believe. Harry stared at him, and Aran promptly bobbed his head and smiled widely, as though he thought that would convince Harry. The smile looked like a grimace. "It only depends on the way that you look when you do it, and the words you speak," Aran added.

Harry quashed the temptation to step back from the man. He was only normal. Surely he had to be. Harry knew that Portillo Lopez had examined every person in the Aurors for the grief magic infection after Nemo was murdered, searching for whose body he might have taken, and Aran would have been quietly captured if he'd been corrupted.

_Unless she killed Nemo, the way you thought she did._

But then Harry decided that didn't matter. If Portillo Lopez had killed Nemo, she would have been eager to find out what body his spirit had decided to possess next, so that she could kill him again.

"Er," Harry said, realizing that, once again, Aran had paused and waited for him to say something. "I think this will be harder than that."

"Try," Aran said, dropping the grimace and once again appearing as the stoic, swift man Harry knew him as. "It is throwing off the balance of the training sessions, and I can hardly help you if you will not cooperate with me."

Harry nodded in relief and agreement, and then slipped out of the classroom. Thank Merlin, Spell Lexicon was his last class today, and he could go back to his rooms—well, Ron's rooms—and arrange things and…think.

He turned the corner, and Draco was there.

Harry froze. Somehow, the vision of Draco had seemed less overwhelming in the middle of class where there were other students present. But here, he loomed like a wall, his hands balled into fists the way he hadn't been able to make them during the session with Aran, his breath coming so fast that he sounded like a snorting bull.

Harry waited, but Draco said nothing. His face was so white that Harry wondered if he had to concentrate all his attention on not fainting. His gaze never wavered from Harry, and surely it wasn't natural that he never blinked.

_You can't do anything, _Harry's conscience taunted him. _You've hurt him so horribly that all you deserve is to look at him and then slink past. _

But Harry had developed a habit of not listening to his conscience anyway, so he said,  
"I'm sorry."

Draco's eyes were like sapphires now, and Harry had to look away, because they hurt him so much. That seemed to be the cue for Draco to stir and say, "_Sorry_," in a tone of utmost contempt.

"Yeah, I know it's not worth anything," Harry whispered, staring at the floor. "And you don't believe me, so it wouldn't _matter _if it was worth anything. But I wanted to say it."

Draco's breathing grew heavier and faster, more irritated. Harry thought for the first time that he really resembled his namesake. He wouldn't have been surprised if a rush of fire had come sweeping down the corridor and consumed him.

"_Sorry_," Draco said again, and his voice stung like his eyes.

"Yeah," Harry said, and couldn't think of a single other thing to add, whether it was hopeful or placating or whiny. He turned and walked down the corridor, shoulders tensed against Draco trying to jump on him and tear him apart.

Nothing like that happened. Harry managed to reach Ron's rooms, let himself inside, and start work on an essay, and there were no pounding footsteps or knocks on the door or demands that he come outside and explain himself _right the fuck now._

Harry thought he might have felt better if there had been.

*

"Since you are behind in your training but ahead of the norm in strength," Weston was saying, her voice high with irritation, "we will begin another series of exercises today."

Draco stood there with his head turned away from Harry and all his attention fixed determinedly on Weston. He thought it was the only way he would get through this training session with his pride intact.

And the only way Harry's bits might survive, too.

"What's the exercise, ma'am?" Harry asked, when it became evident that Weston was waiting for a response from one of them.

Weston closed her eyes and murmured something that sounded like, "Merlin give me patience." When she looked at them again, her eyes were stern and cold, and Draco resisted the temptation to take a step away. _He _wasn't the one who caused the problem between them. "I want you, Malfoy, to go to one side of the room, turn your back to the center, and close your eyes. Meanwhile, Potter, you'll try to edge around him and come up on his side without being seen. Malfoy, I want you to be able to point to him at all times, and don't use your ears to figure out where he is, either."

"What am I supposed to use, ma'am?" Draco was sure that his voice was as neutral and respectful as it could be, but Weston still gave him a look as sharp as a dagger before she stalked over to stand beside Lowell. He put his hand on her shoulder, and she relaxed with a hiss and a small shake of her head.

_Could we do that? _Draco thought automatically, in that way he had of measuring their power against the instructors', and then pulled himself up again. _Of course not. With the way that Harry damaged our trust, it'll probably be years before we're to the point that they both think we "should" be._

"You'll use your sense of Potter," Weston said, and her voice was not _quite _a suppressed shout. "Your focus on his magic, your ability to feel him across distances. It's the same thing that pulls one of you to the other's side when you're in danger." Draco concealed a bitter snort. That ability was next to useless, since it had not let him know when Harry was casting the necromancy rituals, probably because _Harry _didn't feel threatened by that particular form of Dark magic. "Begin."

Draco shuffled towards the far side of the room, then realized what he must look like and lifted his head and feet, walking with a more confident stride. _I am going to do my best, no matter what. Harry's the one who ruined everything. I'll make sure they remember that. _He planted himself on the far side of the room, staring at the stone wall and trying to make his mind interested in the cracks that seamed it.

"Do you have your eyes shut?"

Draco shut them, though he didn't understand why that should matter. If he was facing away, he couldn't see anything, anyway. Perhaps Weston was worried about him responding to a sudden sound and glancing over his shoulder before he could stop himself.

There was a loud scrape and a nervous clearing of a throat, and Draco pointed over his shoulders straight at the sound.

"_Not _your ears, Trainee Malfoy." Weston sounded as though she were trying to control her irritation for some wound that Draco had inflicted on her personally. "With your sense of him."

_Can I help it if he's so clumsy that he causes all those sounds anyway? _Draco thought, but bit his lip and stood there, furiously silent. He was listening, of course he was, but he _did _try to focus inwards and think about the compatible magic that connected them.

Lowell had said that the slightest secret or miscommunication between them could cause a barrier. Given that, Draco had no idea why they thought he would be able to find Harry.

And yet…there _was _something there, like a slight sound that Draco had never taken the time to notice under a jangling confusion of other noises. A soft thump and thrum that ran through his bones, down and out from his body and under or above the floor to Harry's magical core.

Draco waited until he thought he could point along the connection as well as feel it. It was a little as though he were getting used to the feeling of a hot cauldron against his fingers. Then he pointed.

"_Very _good, Trainee Malfoy." Weston sounded as though whatever had crawled into her brain and died was no longer causing such an intense stench. Draco heard her footsteps coming towards him. It was almost hard to listen to her, when so much of his being was still focused on his connection to Harry. "Your turn, Trainee Potter."

Draco turned around, not realizing he had his fists clenched until he saw Harry's eyes dart to them and then away. It was easy to lose the sense of the connection when he wasn't concentrating exclusively on it anymore, but that didn't matter. What angered Draco was that the compatible magic remained between them, unchanged and incorruptible. No matter what Draco had said, they were still partners—especially since Draco hadn't had the courage to announce his refusal to partner with Harry to any of the instructors yet.

They could probably attack each other, and as long as they did it with fists instead of trying it with curses, the compatible magic wouldn't care.

_Has nothing changed except for me? Does no one but me care about what Harry does?_

Draco stepped back and waited while Harry shuffled into his corner and shut his eyes. Then he began to silently stalk around to the side, thinking bitter thoughts about Harry all the time. He was contemplating a future where they still worked together perfectly well, and the only ones who knew about the row were him, Harry, and Harry's friends.

In a way, that was probably for the best, since Harry would be thrown out of the Auror program if they knew he was practicing necromancy, and Draco didn't know what he would do then. He couldn't be someone else's partner, he couldn't be someone else's friend, and he would be more alone than he was now.

But on the other hand, he also thought that it wasn't fair that Harry should simply get away with it. He should be _punished. _Except not with Azkaban, or whatever the punishment would be for as much necromancy as he'd practiced.

And that increased Draco's rage, the thoughts like that which he couldn't control and knew would always come and never grow harsher no matter what he did.

_I need him. I still need him. I can't get away from him. The compatible magic links us, and the friendship we had before that, and desire, and—and love._

Draco had thought that his anger was strong enough to kill his love. Why not? He had never had anyone else to trust who wasn't family, and Harry had pretty much ensured that he never _would _have anyone who wasn't family again.

But anger, disgust, half-hatred couldn't sever the net. Draco was as much bound to Harry as he was bound to his father, no matter what they did to him, how much pain they caused or wanted to cause.

Harry's hand shot over his shoulder, finger pointing straight at Draco.

"_Very _good," Weston said, sounding approving and relieved, and that made Draco squirm with pride and further anger. He escaped from the training session as soon as he could.

*

"Have you had any other visions of Nihil since that one in the mirror?"

Harry shook his head and dug into the salad that Hermione had insisted he get, after several days when he ate almost nothing for meals except biscuits and sandwiches full of one kind of meat or another. Harry supposed the salad wasn't so bad, if you were a fan of the way that the lettuce crackled and crunched and tasted like nothing in particular. "Or of Catherine Arrowshot, either," he added, careful to keep his voice low. Some of the other trainees might not be corrupted by Nihil, but they all knew that name and would want to figure out what Harry was talking about. "I don't know, Hermione. The other vision I had of her was strange and sudden, too. Maybe Nihil's showing them to me to lure me in."

Hermione stopped eating her apple to stare at him. "Well, of _course _that's why you see her, Harry! You didn't really think she could get away from him by herself and was appearing to you because of that, right?"

Harry felt his face burn, and tried to clear his throat. That caused the horrible crackling lettuce to get stuck, and he coughed and choked while Ron pounded him on the back and Hermione shoved a glass of water at him.

Harry wondered if he should feel hopeful or not that, while he was gulping down the water and trying to ease the tight hold in his throat, he could feel Draco's eyes on him, and the anger that was probably coming with the gaze. Since Lowell and Weston had had them practice sensing each other with compatible magic, Harry had been able to feel Draco most of the time. Sometimes it was useful, like when they were crossing the corridors towards each other and Harry could avoid him, but when they were in the same room, it was simply uncomfortable.

_I still want to apologize, but at least now I know for certain he won't accept it._

Harry took a few deep breaths and did his very best to forget about Draco and his furious staring and answer Hermione's question. At least it was a distraction. "I don't know. She disappeared so suddenly that I thought Nihil might have captured her or infected her against her will, and she would still be able to fight him. After all, if she simply wanted to hand us over to him, then she could have given Draco and me to him directly instead of sneaking us in to watch that trainee meeting."

"Unless Nihil was thinking of using her as bait in a trap even then, and _wanted _you to trust her." Ron's face was dark.

Harry gave him a patient look. "Remember when we were giving Nihil too much credit for things, too much power, and deciding that he was practically everywhere?"

Ron flushed and nodded. "Sorry, mate. But we don't really know _why_ Arrowshot disappeared, or why she took you there in the first place, or what Nihil means by appearing to you."

Harry sighed and went back to eating his salad, avoiding the lettuce in favor of the scattered carrots this time. "I know."

"There _is _a way that we can know." Hermione sounded mysterious, and Harry looked at her to find her sitting up very straight, hands folded in front of her, looking from one to the other of them as though she'd already announced her plan and expected them to oppose it.

Harry waited, and waited some more. When Hermione didn't say anything, he finally asked, "Well, how?"

Hermione licked her lips. "I was looking up information on necromancy addiction," she said. Harry winced, but at least she kept her voice low, so the chances that anyone else had heard her weren't good. "And I found something else." She lowered her eyes and traced her finger across the top of the table.

"What?" Ron leaned forwards, his face concerned. Harry knew how he felt. Something that made Hermione nervous was something with the potential to make a lot of other people nervous, too.

"Well, necromancy used to be a way of trying to tell the future by asking the dead questions," Hermione said. "That was its original function." Her finger traced a circle, and Harry wondered if that was the introduction to some obscure ritual, but then Hermione looked up and into their eyes, and Harry suspected she'd just been trying to nerve herself up for what was to come. "So one thing this book suggested was using different methods to gain knowledge, which would lessen the temptation of necromancy."

"I don't see how that applies here," Ron said, with the bluntness Harry loved him for. "After all, that wasn't why Harry wanted to bring the dead back."

"Keep your voice down!" Hermione hissed, looking over her shoulder as if she thought that the massed ranks of Nihil's spies might be standing behind them. Harry's attention focused briefly outwards, and he felt Draco's magic moving slowly closer. Harry winced and wondered what would happen if they had a confrontation in the middle of the dining hall, but Hermione's words destroyed that fear, replacing it with another one. "I found a spell that can let you see into the mind of an enemy. It's like long-distance Legilimency."

Harry stared at her. Ron opened his mouth, but then seemed to lose his voice. So Harry had to be the one to ask, "Why aren't lots of people using this, then? I mean, it seems like it would be perfect for the Aurors if they want to learn about Nihil."

"Not just anyone can use it," Hermione said. "It requires—" She looked at Harry and almost faltered, which meant the answer surprised him not at all. "It requires compatible magic."

Harry clenched his fingers into the edge of the table. "So Draco and I would have to be the ones to do it, then." He wished he could define the tone of his own voice. Flat, uninterested, but only on the surface. Under the surface, he was far too interested, and already making plans about how this might allow them to get back together in a way that meant Draco couldn't just walk away from his apologies.

Then he winced as his conscience came to life and spat poison at him. _You don't deserve that, remember? You deserve to suffer exactly as much as you are now._

"Yes," Hermione said. She looked at Harry with pity in her eyes, and Harry had to turn away. He could bear the venom of his conscience better than he could bear that right now.

"It still doesn't make sense," Ron said stubbornly. "Lowell and Weston have compatible magic. Why don't they use this spell?"

"I don't think they realized it was even there." Hermione seemed to come to life again, her eyes so brilliant that Harry would have found it difficult to look at her even without the pity. "The library is _so _disorganized, and I think there are books there that were never meant to come out of the Ministry library and into the trainees'. And the magic is also considered Dark, and so they probably believe they _shouldn't _use it. I'm telling you, Harry, Ron, I'm starting to think that Dearborn was right. Some of the magic they declare Dark is just based on politics and has nothing to do with the _morality _of the magic at all."

She might have gone into a rant, but Harry knew Draco was right behind them, and he gave a deep sigh and turned around to face him.

Draco had been staring at him, but he immediately turned his eyes aside and stared at Hermione instead. "What are you talking about, Granger?" he asked. "I know it's something important, just from the expression on your face, and you're not going to leave me out of it."

"Good," Hermione said briskly, changing tactics in a moment to lecture mode. "We need your help to find out about Nihil."

Draco blinked for a moment, and then turned and stared bitterly at Harry. "It's going to have to do with compatible magic, isn't it?" he breathed. "I knew it."

"Yes, it is," Hermione said. "And if you don't believe anything Harry says about it, then talk to me and Ron."

Draco turned slowly back around, using his eyes to flay Harry as he passed. But he listened to Hermione when she began to explain about the absolutely private room they would have to use, and the questions they would need to ask, and the length of the incantation.

Harry shut his eyes. _He feels it, too. We can't escape each other, no matter what happens. The compatible magic, and the emotions, tie us together._

That filled Harry with clashing hopes. On the one hand, he thought he should work to make sure that Draco could leave him behind if he wanted. He seemed so disgusted with Harry all the time anyway that a clean break would be best.

Best for him and not for Harry, of course, but Harry didn't think he should consider his own desires anymore. They were corrupt from the bottom up.

On the other hand, a clean break seemed unrealistic. There were just too many tangled and tumbled connections between them.

_I don't understand this, _Harry thought, opening his eyes to look at Draco's face in profile again, _and maybe I shouldn't be glad of it, but I am. I'm glad that I'll be close to him for at least a little while longer._


	20. From a Distance

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Twenty—From a Distance_

Harry stood staring into the mirror, and told himself he was a fool to fear seeing the shadows of Nihil. He hadn't appeared again after the first time, and Harry hadn't seen Arrowshot, either. He'd flinched instinctively from reflective surfaces for a while after that, and Hermione had cast a detection spell that would let her and Ron know in a moment if he was in any danger, but no, nothing had happened.

_It isn't Nihil you're afraid of, _said a wise voice in the back of his head.

Harry took a deep breath and shut his eyes. No, it wasn't, but he didn't see what admitting that aloud would gain him.

_Perhaps it would help you to be more honest. That was what Draco objected to, the lack of honesty. And if you could show him that you're committed to living without lies now, do you think he would take you back?_

Harry shook his head, not opening his eyes to see what his reflection did in return. No, of course not. Draco had said in his tirade that he didn't want to partner with Harry again, and that hadn't happened, but only because of outside circumstances. Harry could still try to give him _part _of what he wanted, and his major longing seemed to be for freedom from Harry.

_I want to give him what he wants. I still care for him. _

Of course he did. Harry knew he was the one who had caused the breach between them, and he didn't blame Draco for his reaction. He would have _liked _to come nearer, to speak to Draco more often, to apologize all the time, to ask him how else he could make up for this, but he didn't deserve that, and Draco didn't want him to do it.

Did Draco still care for him?

Harry opened his eyes to face the stupid mirror again and shrugged stiffly. He couldn't run his life on the hope that Draco did. He had every right not to, he wasn't about to make some move that would betray the true state of his feelings—how could Harry ask him to do that, when Draco had given him so much trust that went unreciprocated?—and probably his anger would hold him away even if his love for Harry was still strong.

It hurt. It hurt all the time, like a broken limb that no Healer could set. But even to feel that pain was sort of dishonorable, Harry felt, because it prioritized his feelings over Draco's. He would just have to live with what he had done, what he had brought on both of them.

Even so, his heart quickened as he stepped out of the bathroom and joined Ron and Hermione. They were going to meet in Ron's rooms and try to use compatible magic to read Nihil's thoughts from a distance.

He didn't deserve it, but he would be close enough to see and touch Draco again. It was all he wanted.

*

A closed door should not have been so intimidating.

Draco folded his fingers into a loose fist and leaned against the wall next to the door. He wanted to take his eyes off it; he wanted to look casual, so that anyone who was walking down the corridor wouldn't find it strange that he was visiting the Weasel. But he knew the tense lines of his body gave him away.

He had had a letter from his mother last night, another apparent plea for him to listen to Lucius and obey with a second message tucked in between the lines. She had told him that the potion she'd administered had little effect so far, but for as short as a time as Lucius had consumed it, that was not unusual. She warned Draco not to return for Christmas holidays if she could not get Lucius under control by that time.

She said it so casually, as if she expected Draco to be blind to the implications of such a statement.

Draco shut his eyes, and used that means to cut himself off from the sight of the door. He thought purely about his mother for a few moments, and then nodded. They were both doing their part to uphold the dignity and honor of the Malfoy family. His part was harder than his mother realized, but still not as difficult as hers.

He knew what she would look like if she could hear him speak those words: pale and upright, dropping her eyes slightly in false modesty, although her cheeks would flush in the pleasure she couldn't hide. _I am only doing what I must, _she would murmur in the cold voice he had never tired of hearing when he was young and had watched his mother insult people in public who had thought they were receiving compliments from her. _What anyone must who wishes to live well._

Draco waited until that vision filled his mind and changed it, altered all the emotions he was feeling so that he didn't wallow so deep in self-pity anymore. Then he raised his hand and rapped on the door.

He could hear Weasley complaining as Granger opened it. "How do we know that it's _him_, Hermione? He could be someone else, even one of the instructors trying to catch us. We should have had him announce his name."

"It is me, Weasley, so stop whinging," Draco said, and stepped into the room with a cool nod to Granger. As much as his mind was changed, though, he couldn't stop the impatient sweep of his eyes, looking for Harry.

The bathroom door opened, and Harry came out.

He halted, as though he hadn't expected Draco to be there already. He blinked and stared, as shy as a young unicorn in the presence of a hunter. Draco felt his mouth begin to water. He had seen that look several times right before Harry's eyes turned dark and determined and he moved to—

Then Draco realized that staring so long could be taken as some sign of caring or forgiveness. He turned his head away and said coldly, "What do we need to do?"

"This way." Granger swept through them like a comet and pointed to a circle she had drawn already in the middle of the main room. Draco examined the circle minutely to be sure that it wasn't made of blood, like the one he had seen in Harry's necromantic ritual, and was relieved to recognize the white flakes of salt. Granger bent down, studied the circle for a moment, and then adjusted the perimeter with some conjured salt from her wand. Then she stepped delicately over the line and into the center.

"We need four people for the ritual," she said, her face radiant. _Probably because she has people to boss around, _Draco thought, and studiously avoided looking at Harry to share a roll of his eyes, as he would have done before. "Five would be better, but I don't think there's anyone outside of this group that we can trust." She moved her gaze solemnly around the room, collecting all of theirs, as if she wanted to impress the importance of the moment on them.

Draco couldn't resist. "And some within it that we can't trust much, either," he muttered.

Harry's face flamed. Draco knew it did, even though he wasn't looking at him right now. It seemed as though the sensitivity that Lowell and Weston had encouraged them to develop in compatible magic training was good at picking up things like that. Draco kept his face turned forwards, and rejoiced.

Granger stared at him, her happy smile vanishing as suddenly as it had come. "If you do that again," she said, "then I'm throwing you out, and we'll find some other way to do this."

Draco stared at her. After what she said to him the other day, about being angry with Harry and thinking his actions were stupid, he had thought she was the one most likely to be on his side. "What do you mean? You need compatible magic to do this. We could replace you and Weasley, but not me."

"Not _both _of you," Granger said. "And if you think that insulting Harry will make him easier to work with, then I can only wonder whether you actually have those vaunted manipulation skills you claim to have."

"Is speaking the truth insulting, now?" Draco mused. He could sense Harry's mood shifting, but again he wasn't looking, so he couldn't give in to the temptation to yell into Harry's face until he broke down and gave Draco a sincere apology.

"I mean it, Malfoy."

Draco frowned at Granger, decided she did, and nodded. "So tell us how this ritual is supposed to work, then."

After a few more glares, Granger gave in to the desire to explain that Draco could see sparkling in her eyes. "All right. The ritual is meant to reach across the distance to Nihil—or anyone else, really—and establish a link to his mind. Ideally without him suspecting that we're doing so. The pair with the compatible magic have to power the link, since no one else is strong enough. The other people keep them from collapsing with the effort and bring the memories and thoughts out of the target's mind into the middle of the circle," and she moved her hand around in a neat line that indicated the salt, "where they become visible, like memories in a Pensieve."

Draco raised an eyebrow. "And why is this Dark?" It sounded like an ordinary procedure to him, if complicated.

"For the same reason that Legilimency is considered a Dark art, one that you can't use without prior approval from the Ministry," Granger said. "It's the rape of the mind." She sounded entirely unconcerned, and Draco wondered if that was because she was so convinced that Legilimency _wasn't _Dark, or because she had no compassion for Nihil.

"Do we need to speak an incantation?" Harry asked, and his voice could still cause Draco's shoulders to tighten and his breath to speed up. _Humiliating, really, _Draco thought as he fought the reaction away. "Or will you do that?"

"Ron and I will do it." Granger gave Weasley a sweet smile, a complacent one, the kind that Draco had once imagined he would always share with Harry—

_No. I am not thinking of that right now. _Draco ripped the thought out of his head with an almost physical effort and threw it away.

Granger gave him a curious glance, as though she wondered what his heaving chest meant, but continued to answer Harry. "Ron and I will conduct the ritual, too. It's meant to join our power to yours, at least enough to bring along the memories from Nihil's mind and make them visible. You don't have to do anything but stand there, and reach out when we tell you to."

"How are we going to locate Nihil's mind?" Harry asked, rendering Draco stiff with annoyance. _He _had been about to ask that.

"The ritual creates the beginnings of a link," Granger said. "You can't use this spell on someone you haven't met before, but all of us have been close to Nihil—at least, close enough for the spell to work," she added quickly, probably because she saw Draco starting to open his mouth in objection. "I think you'll recognize the feel of his mind when you get inside it."

She waited, but none of them had any other questions, since Harry had swallowed up what would have been Draco's only remaining one. Granger nodded to Weasley, and he stepped inside the circle of salt to join her. They linked hands and began to chant in unison, a long, rambling incantation that Draco lost the sense of almost as soon as it began.

Feeling the pressure to do so like a hand on the back of his neck, he finally gave in and looked at Harry.

Harry wasn't looking at him, the prat, but staring straight ahead with his hands clasped in front of him. His desperation to avoid Draco's eyes was palpable. Draco sneered and started to open his mouth to give another insult. Granger was too deep in the magic to notice by now, and it would make him feel better.

Before he could do so, the magic grabbed them both and yanked them into the middle of a new state of being.

*

Harry found himself taking deliberate breaths, as though he had been snatched underwater. The world around them was a dark, heaving blue, the way Harry thought the ocean might appear when you were a meter or two down from the surface, and he couldn't feel anything under his feet or around his hands. He was justified for thinking that he was afloat.

But he calmed down when he realized that he knew exactly how to move in this world. Through the blue-black darkness, a cord stretched, shimmering with faint yellow light like the kind that Nihil wore as part of the glamours over his face. Harry only had to follow the cord, and he would find Nihil at the other end.

And Draco was with him.

There was no sulky holding back here the way there was in their bodies—although there was no talking, either, so maybe that was part of it. Draco rose and fell along a cord of his own that intertwined with the one Harry followed, and Harry thought they sometimes switched places and walked in each other's paths. They didn't have bodies, here, but senses of warmth and darting thoughts like schools of fish, which scattered if they tried to focus on anything for long other than their goal.

It was the first time Harry had been free of the constant pressure of his guilt, sorrow for hurting Draco, and self-loathing since their fight had actually happened. He laughed aloud and threw the laughter to Draco as they curved down, up, and sideways, following the cords past shimmers of magic that Harry dimly perceived were wards intended to guard Nihil's mind from any outside access.

He could be as free as a seal here, and there was no way that Draco could hold back from him. Harry briefly wondered if _this _was the kind of constant communion that Lowell and Weston had described to them and urged them to attain.

Draco grumbled at him and tried to push dislike into the warmth. It scattered. He tried to send Harry a picture of the room where Harry had done the necromantic ritual—or at least Harry thought that was what he was doing, since it only half-formed before it dissolved. He tried not to take pleasure in their effortless companionship.

He failed.

They rose and soared and dipped through this endless sea-sky, and the "water" danced around them, and Harry had never been more content. He knew that he shouldn't put too much stock in it; Draco was only tolerating him at all because this place was so different. But this was what he had wanted without knowing it, the thing the compatible magic seemed to promise when it whispered and sparked between them.

The cords narrowed. Harry knew they were reaching their destination, and he almost didn't want to. He would have liked to stay like this forever.

A moment later, he wished he had.

Hermione had warned them there would be a barrier between the mind they sought and the world around it. Harry was prepared for the strange, soft squeeze that enveloped them and turned the blue-black to utter night. Then, Hermione said, they should emerge into a whirling tunnel of memories like the ones Harry had been exposed to the one time he'd pushed into Snape's mind, and they would have to hunt carefully to find the ones they wanted.

Except it didn't happen like that at all.

The blackness did not end. The soft squeeze became a hard one, so that Harry had a momentary impression of himself imprisoned in a mold of marble. He thrashed around, looking for the memories, and could see nothing.

Nothing…

The nothingness came for them like a flood, bathed in the cold that Harry had experienced when he called Sirius back in his ritual. Frost crisped around them, and then ice. Harry could feel it, cold and blackness and silence.

He reached out, and there was no sense of Draco anymore.

Laughter rang in his head, laughter with _no sound_, like the laughter he heard in dreams. Harry whirled around and lashed out, and hit nothing. Nothing danced back and forth in front of him, taunting. Nothing wound about him and crushed him like the coils of a great snake, but when Harry hissed in Parseltongue, just in case, there was no response.

The laughter changed into words, as silent as the laughter. _Oh, this one? I know this one. But there is a limitation in the spells that your little friend—I am sure it is your researcher friend who found this for you—would not have noticed, because she had no reason to suspect it._

Nothing whirled in circles, unable to contain its joy, which scratched across Harry's mind like bloody claws across flesh.

_The spell only works on minds that are human._

Coldness flowed in, flooded in. Harry was surrounded by it, and there was no room to turn or to swim, now. He struggled, but it was as useless as struggling with a blizzard. Nothing was everywhere, there was too much of it, and not even the thought of Draco could rouse him when his mind was slowing to a stop.

Then light shone out from the side.

*

Draco had lost track of Harry the moment the coldness touched him, but he could still move and think, because _he _had the wit to keep swimming in circles, something he didn't think Harry had managed. Harry had stopped and listened to the words that Draco could feel skittering around the edges of his thoughts.

_Probably promising to teach him more necromancy techniques, _Draco thought sourly, and if he knew he wasn't being fair, it wasn't enough to stop him from having the thought.

Then he felt something waver and stretch and break next to him, and he knew without asking that he was losing his sense of Harry's presence, that the cords that had brought them here were snapping.

Draco whirled and flung himself against the black walls that separated them like a dolphin dashing its nose against a cliff. Nothing happened, and nothing changed. The cliffs continued to exist, and Draco began to lose not just his sense of Harry but the _memory _of that sense, as though someone were going through his mind and casting a thorough _Obliviate _on a few very specific experiences he'd had.

Harry might have panicked, when he felt that. Draco was more accustomed to thinking strategically, and he decided at once that if Nihil wanted Draco to lose those memories, there must be something in those memories that could harm him.

Draco closed his eyes and wheeled into his dazzling thoughts, thinking about the experience they had just had, swimming here, and the other day in their training when he had learned to point straight at Harry even when he wasn't listening for him. He descended further, and recalled moments of fighting together, when the compatible magic had first flared, when Harry had smiled at him for the first time, when Harry had said he loved him and Draco was sure he meant it—

Nothing screamed. Draco snapped his eyes open and saw light spreading around him, so bright and against such thick darkness it was painful to look at. He squinted and coughed, then realized that he had no lungs here to be stung by smoke; it was merely an automatic reaction, because he had assumed that any fire that brilliant would produce a lot of heavy smoke.

Then another voice called to him from behind the thick walls, in the place where he'd been attacking before, and Draco sped and curved towards it. Nothing crowded in, trying to hide Harry again, but Draco knew where he was now, and he clung to that knowledge and used it to ignore the panicked signals from his eyes and his magical core that said he couldn't find Harry again. Harry was here, he was _here_, and Draco coiled his magic into a rope and threw it to him, shouting out soundlessly for him to take it—

Harry grasped it at the same moment as Nihil descended like a sword, trying to sever the connection between them.

Draco felt it as a knife plunging into his chest. From the way Harry cried out, he felt something worse than that.

*

Harry arched when Nihil cut him. And he screamed, the way he had screamed in the graveyard when Pettigrew sliced his arm open so that he could take the blood that he needed to heal Voldemort, the way he had screamed in his soul when Sirius had fallen through the Veil and when he had seen Cedric lying dead.

This was more than pain. This was _destruction. _Harry could feel bits of himself whirling away and being lost, cast into the darkness that made Nihil up and that he carried with him, the darkness that Harry would have raised if he had succeeded in doing necromancy and oh, he _understood _why it was evil now—

Then Nihil touched something else, something that seemed to lurk under Harry's heart.

_He_ screamed, a harder sound than Harry had given, and flung his power back and away from it, scuttling like a cockroach startled by the light. Harry stared around, and found he could see. Nothing was gone, and he floated once more in a blue-black sea, though it was murkier than it had been.

And Draco shone from the side, calling to him, loving him.

Harry swam to meet him. They didn't speak, and Harry found it hard to imagine what they would have said in any case. But he took Draco's hand, and they followed the spiraling cords back towards the place where Hermione and Ron waited, and they flew in perfect companionship all the way.

Draco spoke only once, as they hammered out of the sea on a long upsweep that would carry them back to the surface and breathable air at last. "What did you do that made him leave you alone?"

Harry shook his head. "I have no idea," he said honestly. "It seemed to be something in me that made him flinch away—something deep, that I didn't know was there." He tried to smile, although he already knew that had been the wrong answer because Draco was drawing back from him. "Maybe my mother's sacrifice? It was the same thing that made it impossible for Voldemort to kill me."

Draco snatched his hand back and shot for the surface.

Harry followed, shaking his head in misery. He had been whole, for a few minutes, and then it had been broken, taken away. Maybe that was all he deserved, and he should just concentrate on the joyful news that they had a weapon—of some kind—against Nihil, and not worry about anything else.

Then he remembered the dreadful darkness of Nihil's mind again, and drew himself up.

_No._ He had done wrong, yes. He had almost summoned that darkness into the world.

But he hadn't _known_. If he had once had any idea of what the price would have been, he would have turned his back on the dead and clung to the living.

He needed the living—he needed Draco—far more than he needed redemption. That meant he would do whatever he had to do to make it up to Draco, including abasement and constant apologies and open questions and gestures and gifts, if Draco would like that sort of thing.

It occurred to Harry that, for all he loved Draco, he knew very little about him.

_But I am going to fight for him. And make him fight for me._

Then they broke out into the light, where Hermione and Ron and the rest of their lives were waiting for them.


	21. The Unexpected

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Twenty-One—The Unexpected_

"But we have to figure out what it is." Hermione's words rapped on Harry like a hairbrush across his knuckles, and he nodded and stared at his hands, almost expecting to see bruises there.

"I know," he said. "But I _don't _know what it is. I've thought, and there's a few possibilities, but none of them seem right."

"Tell me what you thought of." Hermione leaned forwards and posed a quill in the air relentlessly. A piece of parchment, covered with notes, already lay in front of her, but it was cleared away and replaced with a clean one at a whisper of a spell from her.

Harry sighed and tried to think of an answer. He had spent hours that first night after they fought Nihil contemplating what he was going to do about Draco, and only a few less contemplating what Hermione wanted to know: what in him had managed to drive Nihil away.

"Maybe my mother's sacrifice," he said at last. "That was only supposed to work against Voldemort, but I know that Nihil almost killed me." He wanted to flinch when he remembered the blade cutting into him, but then Hermione would be concerned, and Harry would have to put up with more fussing than he wanted. "Maybe it could work against any Dark wizard who was intent on slaughtering me."

Hermione gave him a small smile as she wrote the possibility down. "That would be a good thing to have when you're working in the field against Dark wizards," she said.

Harry blinked. Her words had reminded him of something he often forgot: that all this training had a goal, that someday he would be an Auror. It sometimes seemed as if this condition of training, rowing with Draco, and fighting Nihil would go on forever, the way he had imagined Hogwarts would when he was a student there.

"Yeah," he said. "But I don't know if it was really that."

"Yes, you don't." Hermione finished writing and stared at him expectantly. "What else do you think it might have been?"

"Well." Harry scratched the back of his neck. "Maybe my love for Draco? I was thinking about it when Nihil stabbed me."

Hermione frowned. "If it was that, why did it never protect you when you were fighting Nihil and his friends in the real world? I think you've been in love with Draco for a long time."

Harry flushed to hear her say it straight out like that, though he didn't really know why he was embarrassed. The words were true, and truth shouldn't be that embarrassing. "I don't know," he said. "Maybe it was different because we were in his mind, and both the weapon and the wound were more direct there?"

"I don't know," Hermione said, and then sighed and stared into the distance with glazed eyes for a moment. "There's so much that we don't know," she whispered. "But I'm going to be the one to find out."

Harry stared at her. She sounded _frightening _when she said it that way. But Hermione didn't notice his look, since she was scribbling industriously. Harry saw her add several notes around the first one in a quick, almost unintelligible hand, and then stare at the wall again. He didn't think she needed his help anymore.

"I'm going to talk to Draco," he said, and climbed to his feet. It felt like climbing a mountain, though that was probably the task ahead of him more than anything else.

Immediately Hermione snapped back to the present and stared at him, frowning. "Are you sure that you should, Harry?" she asked. "He seemed awfully upset still when you came back from fighting Nihil."

Harry sighed. "I'm not looking forwards to it," he said. He thought he could tell that much to Hermione without it being a betrayal. "But I want him back. And I know—I felt the darkness in Nihil's mind, and I _know _now how bad it would have been if I'd succeeded at necromancy. That might make a difference."

Hermione smiled at him and put her hand on his, squeezing once. "I do hope that you get him back," she said. "I've been hard on him, but that's because I know how you're suffering and he doesn't. You ought to tell him."

Harry nodded and smiled and got out of Hermione's rooms as soon as he could. He wasn't about to tell her that he thought whinging about his suffering to Draco would be exactly the wrong thing to do. He'd spent too much time concentrating on himself. Even concentrating on his guilt and what kind of wrongs he was doing the living and the dead by not bringing the dead back to life or making mistakes that hurt the living was a form of selfishness.

He wanted to think about Draco.

And so he was going to try something that he thought was risky, because Draco might resent it, but which was also the only thing he could think of to do.

*

"Malfoy."

Draco was so used to hearing people speak his last name with scorn that he had become rather good at ignoring those who muttered it. He would defend himself against direct attacks, but this didn't sound like one.

"_Malfoy._"

Draco finally turned his head. The voice was insistent enough that it would be better to avoid unpleasantness by doing that, and he did have his hand on his wand already under the table.

The woman leaning towards him was another trainee, he knew that, but it took him a moment to study her face and remember her. Ursula Ventus, who had proved to be so unexpectedly talented in Combat towards the beginning of the term. Draco didn't think he'd ever had any interaction with her outside of duels and fights in the classes. He looked silently at her and waited for her to state what she wanted.

Ventus gave him a wide-eyed stare and spent a few minutes entwining her fingers with each other, as if she assumed that would get her message across somehow. Draco sneered and said nothing. He wasn't about to give her any help. If she wanted to approach him when he was studying, then she could bloody well make it worth his while.

"I heard that you were fighting Nihil," Ventus whispered at last. "Is that true?"

Draco kept down the jolt he felt, and the immediate suspicion that Harry had betrayed him. "We're _all _fighting Nihil," he said. "And yes, I wanted to become a War Wizard." If Ventus was fishing in search of information, throwing out words that she hoped would startle him into offering more than was good for him, Draco would give her this one harmless piece of information. It was easy to check, and it might make her think she knew everything already once she learned it.

Ventus studied him in silence, then shook her head. "No," she said. "I don't think so. You have compatible magic. You're stronger than a lot of the trainees in the program." She glanced about, though no one was sitting at the tables nearest them, and lowered her voice. "And there are rumors that you spent a lot of time with Catherine Arrowshot right before she disappeared."

Considering that he was allies with two of their current instructors, Draco felt confident enough to sneer at her. "Doesn't that suggest that I'm _with _Nihil, not fighting him?" She was welcome to go to the instructors with that, if she wanted.

"No," Ventus said. "Because she vanished, but you stayed."

"You never know," Draco taunted. "I could be infected." He wouldn't have said such a reckless thing ordinarily, but Lucius had dared to send him an owl that morning, summoning him home to the Manor the minute he read it. Draco had crumpled it up and wondered if the potion his mother had tried to use was failing after all. That, on top of the fight with Harry, meant that he would have no one to turn to.

_I wish I had friends, _he thought, and had to keep his hand from clenching down on the edge of his book or the table. Not for the world would he have Ventus see his weakness like that.

"I don't think you are." Ventus surveyed him with unblinking eyes. "You look too bitter."

"What does _that _have to do with anything?" Draco asked, genuinely startled. No one had said something that startled him in a long time. He turned around and studied the girl openly, and she studied him right back.

"Nihil's followers have something to live for," she said. "Something stupid, but they believe in it. And you sneer and act as though all your advantages were only illusion. I don't think Nihil would choose someone as discontented as you are to follow him. Or else he would choose you and promise to satisfy your wants, and then you would smirk more often and jeer less." She paused. "Unless jeering is just part of who you are. I've heard that about the Malfoys."

Draco looked at her some more. Her eyes were larger than he had thought they were, and she leaned her head on her hand as though she were tireless and could hold the position for as long as it took him to make up his mind about her. Draco bit his lip thoughtfully and tried to think what he could possibly do to make use of her.

She was good at Combat, and he often saw her in the library studying before exams, and that was all he knew.

"Assume that I'm not allied with Nihil," he said. "We'll grant that, for the sake of argument." He said that with a definite sneering undertone, but Ventus only blinked at him and waited for him to continue. "What good does that do you? What can you get from me if I'm not allied to him?"

"An ally of my own," Ventus replied without hesitation. "They're training us to be Aurors, aren't they? But they won't let us _fight. _Even in the battle last year, we were supposed to stay out of the way and cower like frightened creatures." She shut her mouth for a moment, but the thin line of her lips told Draco her words weren't exhausted yet. "I hate that. I want to prove myself as good as any of them. I want to fight."

Draco splayed his fingers under his chin. She sounded Slytherin one minute and Gryffindor the next, and he didn't know how to deal with such a strange mixture of foolhardy bravery and ambition. "I still don't know what makes you think that I'd be such a good fighter," he said. "Better than someone like Ignotus, for example." He was currently Ketchum's favorite student in Battlefield Tactics; he seemed to be able to look at one of those bloody obstacle courses Ketchum favored and make it unfold into a map before his eyes.

"But you have compatible magic," Ventus said, as if that settled the matter. "And you survived the war."

Draco couldn't help it; he laughed. "So did lots of other people."

Ventus leaned forwards until their noses were almost pressed together. In spite of himself, Draco found it flattering to be the target of such a fixed and fascinated stare. Ventus really acted as if she believed what she was saying, as if she thought that he was someone much more important than Draco felt himself to be right now.

_She might do that as a means of taking you off-guard, _Draco reminded himself, and tried his best to maintain a cynical, on-guard posture, at least in his mind.

"But you survived in the heart of the war," Ventus whispered, "in Malfoy Manor. That means that you must have some quality—alertness or caution or an iron will. You'll be the center of a resistance movement against Nihil sooner or later. I'd like to build it now, before more people are corrupted and fall to him. And before I spend more time _not fighting_."

Draco took a deep breath, his skin tingling. He thought it was the first time that anyone had ever looked up to him as a leader—at least, since Hogwarts. He had thought that he led the Slytherins sometimes, but he was painfully aware, now, that they had put up with him most of the time because his father was too well-connected to ignore.

_I like this._

He couldn't resist. If it turned out that he couldn't keep any promises to Ventus, it still wouldn't hurt anything very much if he pretended that he could. He would find some way to induct her into their fight with Nihil and make sure that she was trustworthy. And if she wasn't, then lying to her would keep her off-balance anyway.

He whispered back, "We're trying to put one together. But we need your silence and your secrecy more than your help at this point."

"Of course," Ventus whispered. "They could corrupt anyone, I think, couldn't they? You don't want to go around asking just anyone into the alliance, because it might turn out that you'll have to repudiate them later." She paused suddenly and cocked her head at Draco like an owl. "Is that what happened with Catherine Arrowshot?"

"Your silence," Draco repeated haughtily, but his heart had given a kick and then begun to pound thickly. Ventus was smarter than he had thought.

"Yes, of course." Ventus pushed herself back from the table, looking deeply satisfied. "I should have known that you would have a plan. That was why I came to you, after all." She nodded to Draco and slipped away into the library as silently as though someone was hunting her.

Draco sat where he was, feeling a warm current move through his blood. He hadn't realized how deeply he _needed _that, needed to have someone treat him like he was worthwhile. Harry's friends never did it, even if they were supposedly "tolerating" him. And Harry…

Draco shut his eyes. He wanted to think about the possibilities of building another alliance, one that might last this time. He worried faintly about the fact that Ventus had approached him instead of the other way around, and so he didn't have as much control over her as he might have liked, but then he snorted. A willing alliance was probably the best one. When he had led the Slytherins, they had always been looking for some kind of advantage over him, because they resented his control and wanted to usurp his place.

_Perhaps being with Harry has taught me more about equal relationships._

Then Draco had to grind his teeth, because nothing about his relationship with Harry had been equal, even if it seemed that way. He had been the one to expend more trust, more trust, more effort. Harry had leaned back, absorbed it all like some spoiled child, and then acted offended when Draco wanted more from him than that.

"Draco. Can I talk to you?"

The voice still had the power to take away all his pride in an instant, and Draco tried to cover the truth of that with an icy mask as he turned around and raised his eyebrows. Harry bit his lip and dropped his eyes as if shy when he saw Draco looking at him, but Draco didn't think he was. He knew that look of guilt all too well.

"What do you want?" Draco asked, and turned back to his book. "I'm busy."

"I wanted to apologize," Harry said. His voice was low, but persistent, and people were beginning to look at them from other tables. Draco ground his teeth and wished that Harry could keep from embarrassing him for _one _day, for _one _second. "Again, if you'll let me. I was wrong. I know that more than ever now, after what—what we experienced." At least he was intelligent enough not to confess in public than they had used a Dark spell to enter Nihil's mind, Draco thought sardonically. "I don't have two sets of duties in conflict. I have one set of duties, and I betrayed them badly. I have a duty to you."

Draco dug his fingers into the tabletop, not caring if he scratched it. Concentrating on the blend of sensations between his nails and the smooth wood was the only thing that kept him from flying at Harry. "I'm a duty," he said. "Of course I am. Your friendship with me was only from pity in the first place, and you never truly loved me."

There was a muffled, windy sound, as though Harry had started to say something and then swallowed it. "You're much more than that to me," he said evenly, at last. "I promise, Draco. I haven't done the best lately. I've hurt you, and I want to make up for that. The problem is, I'm not sure how I should."

Draco stood up abruptly. He couldn't stand to hear much more of this. "You want me to _tell _you?" he said, and sneered at Harry.

Harry stood closer than Draco was comfortable with, staring at him with intense green eyes. "I don't _want _you to," he said. "But I've already hurt you so much." There was more than guilt in his voice, but Draco refused to allow himself to consider it, knowing what would happen if he did—he would get hurt again. "I wish you would tell me, because that's the only way I can be sure that I'm doing what you want, what you need." He reached out a caressing hand and acted as if he would lay it on Draco's arm.

Draco dodged, maddened, harassed, and hurt most of all by the faint hope that Harry was telling the truth and he'd learned his lesson. "You still want me to do all the work," he said. His voice was rising, and the stares were more frequent now, but he couldn't care; he just _couldn't_. "I'm supposed to be the guide, the adult, the _interpreter _of everything for you. Fuck that. I don't care anymore."

He left the library, the books in his arms tottering. He might have left a few of them behind.

He didn't care. He wouldn't risk going into the library right now, not when it might mean another confrontation with the _prat._

*

Harry sighed and shook his head. That had gone worse than he had expected. Even with as much as he had hurt Draco, he had hoped that Draco might listen to him when he showed his remorse and asked for help.

_Well, he _has _been helping you too much lately. You're going to have to do something else._

Harry sucked the inside of his cheek and tried to figure out what that might be. Approaching Draco again right now would only irritate him. In fact, coming near him, except during class, for the next few days probably wasn't a good idea. And he hated to do something that would help Draco, because that might make it seem as though he was trying to impress him to get back into his good graces.

Harry laughed quietly to himself then. _That's what I'd most like to do, though, because it's what would be easiest. I save the world, and people accept that as a good sacrifice and leave me alone. It's the tactic I use most often and that I'm most comfortable with._

But he deserved to be uncomfortable because of what he'd done to Draco.

He should figure out what was most uncomfortable, then, and do it.

_Right now, that would be waiting until Draco calms down and trying again. _Harry shook his head and turned to make his way out of the library. He still wanted to ask for help, because he was so afraid of fucking up again. But he thought Draco would take it as another kind of betrayal if he went to Hermione.

_I think. Do I know him well enough to be sure what he thinks? _

Harry halted in the middle of the corridor and braced his arm against the wall, hanging his head as he thought. He was becoming more and more convinced that he and Draco didn't have enough knowledge of each other. They'd become friends and then true partners and lovers, but except for the compatible magic, they didn't have many ties.

_He still despises my friends. I don't know that he has any. I'm afraid of his father trying to kill me if we come into contact—or trying to kill Draco, for that matter. I don't understand his mother. I don't know what it was like to be a Slytherin, and he only knows what it was like for me in Gryffindor because he spied on me, or else the papers reported my every move. Maybe that's what we need more than anything else. Time to get to know each other, talk slowly and learn what's most important._

Harry lifted his head. He had another idea now, an idea that was perhaps silly but might serve. He would at least try it, and if it didn't work, then he was no worse off than before. He didn't think that he could hurt Draco much more now, unless he turned to necromancy again. The way Draco had raged in the library was because of the old wound to his trust, not any new ones that Harry had inflicted.

At least, he hoped so. If he was tearing them further apart every time he acted or didn't act, then he might as well give up right now.

He started to move forwards, and then became aware someone was standing behind him. Trying to keep his grip on his wand casual, he turned around.

Ventus stood there frowning at him, arms folded. Harry hadn't forgotten her from that morning in Combat, and he tried to smile politely at her, while wondering what the fuck she wanted.

"I heard you fighting with your partner," Ventus said without preamble. "You shouldn't do that. He's harder than you think, and he's going to end up leading a resistance against Nihil. He's been into the heart of darkness and not been corrupted by it."

"Excuse me?" Harry asked faintly. He hadn't heard anyone talk like that about Draco before, and for a moment he wondered if Ventus had a crush on Draco.

The jealousy that thought carried along with it made him choke, but luckily, he could still hear Ventus even as he struggled to clear his throat of the blockage.

"We talked," Ventus said. "We're allies. And you're his partner, and one of the reasons he's strong is because of the compatible magic, so you need to be strong, too. Don't row with him. Repair it."

"I'm trying," Harry protested. "He was too hurt to repair it yet, and it'll probably be a while before he can."

"I didn't know heroes whinged so much," Ventus said, while her eyes got sharper and sharper.

"It's not whinging, just telling the truth," Harry said. He was starting to wonder how much she had overheard, how much Draco had told her. "I fucked up. It was my fault. But I don't know how to make up for it yet."

Ventus cocked her head to the side. "You could try apologizing."

"I _did_," Harry said, before he clicked his teeth together and told himself she had no reason to be this interested in the state of his relationship. He didn't owe her anything. He shook his head and started to step past her.

Ventus seized his arm. Harry, remembering the way she could move, stood still reluctantly and met her fierce gaze.

"He's going to be great," Ventus said. "He's already strong. But anyone could see that he's suffering. I want him strong so he can lead this fight. Stop rowing with him, apologize, give up notions of extravagant gestures, and _grovel. _I think he would like groveling. And listening. And asking things."

"He doesn't like the asking for things," Harry said sulkily, remembering the way Draco had reacted to his question about what he wanted.

"Grovel, then," Ventus said, and released his arm and walked past him up the corridor.

_I was sure Draco didn't have any friends besides me, _Harry thought, rubbing his arm and staring after her. _I reckon he does now._

_Whether either of us want her as one or not._


	22. Words Writ Upon Suffering

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Twenty-Two—Words Writ Upon Suffering_

Ventus seemed to have made it her mission to shadow Draco no matter where he went. She sat not next to him but not far from him in Combat, and watched him so intently that Morningstar had partnered them together more than once. Draco always lost.

He would have let his resentment for that overcome his flattery at her admiration, but Ventus was so insistent that she had her own kind of charm. She talked relentlessly about the resistance against Nihil that she was so sure he would lead, and jerked her head to add emphasis to her words hard enough that her hair fell in her face. She would push it back into place and continue talking on as if she hadn't noticed.

"But what makes you so sure that I can lead one?" Draco asked in the library one afternoon, a few days after Ventus had first approached him. "I know that you told me surviving the war must count for something, but I don't _feel _as though it does, and a leader needs confidence."

"I've watched you in classes," Ventus said. "You know the answers most of the time. You just can't always express them."

Draco laid his book down and frowned at her. "What does that have to do with readiness to become a leader?"

"Leaders are there to issue commands and take action," Ventus said, "not talk. And you issue commands well enough, and I think that you can apply the practical knowledge even when you sit there with your mind clogged because you can't find the right words to put around a concept." She sniffed. "Words. Who cares about them, anyway?"

Draco frowned more widely, not entirely pleased with the way she had put things.

But Ventus was just that way. She made it clear that she wanted to fight and believed Draco would bring her nearer that goal than anyone else, which was refreshingly honest and meant Draco had the kind of relationship with her that he hadn't had with anyone since Hogwarts. She didn't lie; Draco didn't think it would occur to her to do so. She pushed Draco and expressed an unwavering belief in him that gave Draco his own kind of confidence, even as the days passed and Harry made no other attempt to apologize.

He had warned Harry away from apologizing, of course, but warnings had never been enough to keep him at bay before. Draco was starting to think that Harry let his emotions control him and distance him from Draco when it most counted—when he should have listened to his Gryffindor stubbornness and broken through Draco's reserve.

Draco didn't know if he would have accepted that had it happened, of course. He wasn't ready to forgive Harry yet. But he would have been able to explain himself and release the accumulated poison from his veins, and he couldn't do that with Ventus because he didn't want her to know the details of the fight.

He was reduced to watching jealousy from a distance as Harry ate and talked with Weasley and Granger, as he worked through his projects alone, and as he once or twice sat back from his books with a grin, as though he had just made some important discovery. They hadn't had another training session with Lowell and Weston yet, and they weren't being asked to demonstrate compatible magic in class right now, so Draco had lost even that excuse for being close to him.

Draco reassured himself that he didn't need a partner who would lie to him, someone who had violated his trust at every turn and didn't even regret it. But he found his eyes tracking Harry when they shouldn't be, his shoulders twitching at the sound of his voice, his ears waiting for Harry's laughter.

He _needed _the bastard. That was the plain and sober truth of it. Draco wished it wasn't so—wished so fervently that sometimes his waking seemed like a nightmare and his dreams, where he walked proud and alone, like real life—but wishing wouldn't change things.

He still didn't want to make the first move, though. His pride had been hurt. Harry should be the one applying balm to those wounds. He should apologize. Draco's pride was the only thing keeping him upright at the moment, and he couldn't bend it again.

So he waited, and pined, and hated himself for pining, and listened to Ventus and got his confidence up again temporarily, and did classwork and tried to pretend that Harry Potter didn't exist.

*

It was days before Harry felt confident enough to put his next Draco-recovering plan into motion.

He had clung to the idea that had come to him the other day (_before _his conversation with Ventus, so that he didn't have to say that he owed the idea to her). He would write Draco a letter. He might do better if he had more time to put his thoughts into words, and he could go back and cross out anything that sounded stupid. And if Draco chose to read the letter, at least he wouldn't walk away in the middle of the conversation, before Harry had said everything that he wanted to say.

Of course, maybe Draco would tear the letter up instead, but in that case Harry was no worse off than he had been before.

He debated and struggled and tried his best to listen to his feelings while he was building up his courage. He watched Draco from a distance, noticed the way he talked to Ventus and sometimes to other people that he had "control" over—which Harry assumed meant he had blackmailed them—and the way he sat writing in class or while hunched over his homework.

How did he feel about that? How badly did he want the separation between them to end?

_I miss him._

That was the most concrete observation to come out of Harry's time spent looking at Draco, and he was afraid it sounded stupid and wouldn't be strong enough. He ought to find subtle, elegant, refined words for Draco, words that would reach out and grip his heart and persuade him to give Harry another chance. He ought to be better than his own limitations would let him be.

But he wasn't, and so in the end he decided that he needed to write the letter as the person he was and not the person he would have liked to be. He sat down with a quill and parchment and ink during an hour when Ron was "visiting Hermione's rooms" and poured out his feelings onto the paper.

When it was done, he stared at it and bit his lip hard enough to make it bleed. This was too honest, he thought. He shouldn't give it to Draco because Draco would have blackmail material for the rest of Harry's life. He would only have to whisper a few words of this with a smirk, and Harry would die of humiliation.

_But he's changed since Hogwarts. And I trust him._

The trust finally made Harry stuff the letter in an envelope and find an anonymous post-owl to send it by. He would have to hope that Draco would give the letter a chance, and that the honesty wouldn't put him off.

*

The owl came winging down into the middle of the dining hall and straight for Draco. He accepted the letter warily. All the trainees had been urged to watch their post for signs of nasty tricks or hexes. Since Nihil wasn't trying to get past the wards anymore, he would probably attempt to sneak in another way.

There was no name of the sender on the envelope, which increased Draco's trepidation—until he looked hard at the scraggly, slightly rounded letters that made up his own name and realized he knew them.

He jerked his head up, narrowing his eyes at Harry's back, and then realized Harry had already left the dining hall.

And people were beginning to give him curious looks, attracted by the way he had handled the letter. If Draco didn't want someone to start spreading gossip about his private affairs, it was better to act as if the message contained nothing significant. Draco tucked the letter away in his bag without opening it and continued eating.

All the afternoon he could feel the letter burning there like an icy ember, until finally he reached his rooms again and could take it out to read it.

_Dear Draco: _

_I still feel comfortable calling you that, despite everything we've gone through. I can't imagine that I'd go back to calling you Malfoy, no matter how much distance we put between each other._

_I'm sorry._

_I've told you that before, but I remembered that I didn't tell you why I meant it, why it was different from what I said when you first confronted me about the necromancy. I'm sorry now because I saw the darkness in Nihil's mind and I know what it means. The thought that I could become like Nihil really scares me. That was what I needed to make me realize that I should stay away from it._

_I confused the dead with the living. I thought the dead could still think and feel like the living, and would resent the fact that I hadn't saved them. So I had to do anything I could to make it up to them, and it didn't matter what it cost me, because it's _never _mattered what it cost me. I didn't think about the living._

_I'm not sure what that says about me. Maybe that I still have that hero complex you told me I had last year, when I took off to try and help Hagrid without telling you. Maybe just that I'm not very thoughtful and don't consider what kind of claims other people have on me. Maybe both, or some other possibility that I haven't even thought of. My mind tends to go in circles a lot. That's one thing you do for me—help me out of the circles—and one reason I love you._

_I don't know if I can change anything or make anything up to you. Maybe the wound goes too deep. Maybe it would be better for you if I let you go, so that you could find someone who respects you and whose word you can trust._

_But I can't._

_I'm selfish, Draco. I didn't pay enough attention to you, and that was stupid. I need you, and not just because you pull my mind out of the circles. I've missed you this last week. I want you with me because I'm a better person when you're here. You open up new perspectives to me. You teach me that the living really do matter, and that I shouldn't take dumb risks. You've taught me that I matter to other people, too, and I can't thoughtlessly sacrifice my life, or even do it thoughtfully, and hope that the world will improve._

_What do I give to you? I'm less sure about that, and I don't really want to answer, because you might think that it's presumptuous. I think you need to define it._

_So. Someone advised me that I should grovel to you, and I'm ready to do that. But I'm not sure what kind of groveling would be best, because I know that you don't want apologies so far, and promises from me would mean nothing. Will you tell me what you'd like from me? I know that in one way I'm putting the burden on you again, demanding that you advise me, but I really am out of ideas. And I think we've seen that my ideas aren't always the best ones, anyway._

_Love,_

_Harry._

Draco sat there for a long time when he'd finished reading the letter. He thought he should have more of a reaction. He thought that he should feel scornful and tear up the letter.

Instead, his hands were numb, and his tongue was still, and his head was filled with a buzzing, clear light.

He read the letter again, and a third time. When he finished, his head danced with the words, and he could almost have recited the letter from memory.

Various reactions began to rush through him when he could think of something other than the clear light, words that collided with each other and spun around one another like dance partners.

_I don't believe any of it._

_He's demanding guidance from me, just the way he did in the library. If he was really sorry, he would pick some course and follow it, and if he really knew me, he would have known without asking what would please me._

_Someone _else _recommended groveling? He can't even have that much initiative and that much of an idea about what would help me?_

Draco turned the letter over, thinking as he went that he really should feel something more than sad disbelief, and then saw a note that Harry had scribbled on the back. At least, it was in the same handwriting as the rest of the letter. Draco had to admit that he didn't know that Granger hadn't stood over Harry and dictated this to him; it sounded too honest, too real, too _full _for Harry to have written on his own.

_I was thinking the other day about how we don't really know each other at all. We sprang over some of the immediate steps; we were friends and partners and lovers too fast, and the compatible magic made everything too easy. If you accept this letter, could you meet me somewhere so we can talk about it? A conversation is what we need._

It was as if Harry had read the thoughts about how little Harry knew him out of Draco's head and anticipated them.

Draco flung the letter on the table and stared at it.

He had never heard Harry sound like this, which increased his suspicions that he was looking at something Granger had come up with instead. And that was _cheating. _Draco was tempted to go to this meeting with Harry just so he could spit those words, see his face crumple, and then leave haughtily.

_But that would still be looking at him. Talking to him._

Draco shook his head. He didn't understand. He was upset, exhausted, and confused. It felt as though he was being swept out to sea after having struggled a long time with a heavy current. He couldn't _think_.

He wanted to see Harry, and he didn't. He wanted to accuse him of cheating with Granger's help, and he wanted to believe, desperately, that he had written this letter himself and meant every word. He wanted to blame Harry because he had asked Draco for advice on apologizing _again_, and embrace the trust it implied, that Harry was letting him direct the terms of their reconciliation.

And he couldn't do any of that, because there was no way that he could trust or believe any of what Harry had written. He was a liar.

Draco seized a quill and ink and wrote a response on the paper below Harry's note, before he could stop himself. _Meet with me at seven tonight in the library. I'm going to bring Veritaserum. I want you to confess everything that you just told me in the letter under the influence of that potion._

It was the only way he could protect himself, Draco thought as he went to search for a post-owl. If Harry refused to do it, then Draco would know he was a liar, and he wouldn't have to think about him ever again.

If he agreed…

Draco straightened his spine and shook his head. He didn't have to think of _that _possibility, because there was no way that Harry would ever agree.

*

Harry read Draco's note and closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. This was what he had wanted: a chance to prove himself. And he swore up and down, if only to himself, that he wasn't going to fuck it up this time.

He opened his eyes and frowned. A strange, shimmering, heavy haze hung at the corners of his eyes. He blinked and rubbed them, thinking it might be bits of sleep clinging there, but the haze remained.

Harry shrugged. He really didn't have time to worry about it. Draco's letter needed a reply, and he wouldn't feel good until he'd written one. Draco would probably be waiting for it, too, with his arms folded and a sneer on his face.

_That's how I know I'm in love with him, because even picturing that sneer just makes me smile, instead of resent him._

Harry dipped his quill in the ink—

And the world around him turned inside out, sounds becoming muffled drums in the distance, and Harry found himself spinning down into the depths of a memory.

_No! I don't have time for a fit! Not when Draco's waiting for me!_ Harry struggled with all his might, trying to send his mind surging upwards and out of the whirlwind that threatened to consume him. He was sorry the dead were dead, that was still true, but he didn't _care, _he couldn't faint, Draco was waiting—

The images that wavered in front of him were familiar, of the first time he had gone to see Teddy after his parents' death and found himself thinking that he might have prevented Teddy from being an orphan if he had just been a bit quicker, a bit smarter, a bit more attentive during the battle—

_That's not true, _Harry thought, flinging the words at himself that he knew Draco would have used. It didn't mean he _believed _them, but they were the best weapons he had available on short notice. _I didn't kill Remus and Tonks. I'm sorry they're dead, but it's not my fault, and I can't change anything, and—_

The truth burst out of him, cutting through the tired words that could never get rid of the burden of his guilt. _And I'm so _tired _of these stupid fits!_

The memory tore like mist. Harry found himself crouched over the table where he'd sat down to write his letter to Draco, blinking and massaging his head. He cast a swift _Tempus _Charm to reassure himself that he hadn't lost time, but no, it was only a few minutes later than it had been the last time he remembered checking. He hadn't missed his meeting with Draco.

What had happened was so momentous that it took Harry a while of sitting there and rubbing his forehead to understand it.

_I can control these fits! I really can. I don't need a Mind-Healer. I just need to think through what I'm saying and thinking more often, and hate the fits enough to get rid of them._

Harry whistled under his breath and grinned. If the fits were caused by his intense guilt, then of course they would go away if he didn't feel the guilt anymore. That was so simple he didn't know why he hadn't considered it before.

Luckily or unluckily, an answer wasn't long in coming.

_Because I don't deserve not to feel that guilt. And I need my conscience. I can't cast it aside because it makes certain things inconvenient. If I'd been listening to it in the first place, then I would never have hurt Draco._

Harry frowned and spun his quill over between his fingers. How did other people make up their minds about these things? He knew that sometimes they worried over things that Harry didn't—like the way Hermione worried about marks—but they didn't do it intensely enough to cause themselves fainting and convulsing fits every few days.

And wasn't it better to worry too much over causing deaths than not enough?

_But did I cause them?_

Harry gnawed his quill, and then stopped, because it stuffed his mouth full of feathers. He started cracking his knuckles instead, just to give himself something to do while he thought.

He didn't know the answer, that was the problem. He thought he'd had the power to save them. To save Sirius, all he would have had to do was listen to Snape and not go to the Department of Mysteries. That made that particular death his fault, even if none of the others were. Something _he _had done had directly caused it.

But could he have saved Remus and Tonks?

_If I'd been stronger, faster. If I'd worked out that I was the last Horcrux on my own and confronted Voldemort right away, then there wouldn't have had to be a battle. I could have died, and come back to life, and Teddy would still have a mum and dad. I don't want anyone to grow up the way I grew up._

That was the familiar track of his thoughts, but Harry did something he'd never done before: he braced himself in his thoughts right there and tried to follow them to their logical conclusion.

Was Teddy really going to grow up like him?

_No. Andromeda loves him, and he has me—even though I haven't visited him much lately—and other people, like the Weasleys, who know about him and are interested in him. Nobody except Dumbledore knew where I was, and I didn't know about the wizarding world, and nobody visited me. So he'll still be an orphan, which is awful, but it isn't going to be exactly like me._

Harry licked his lips when he finished thinking that thought, and flinched a little. It made sense, or it seemed to, but it still hurt.

_What if I'm wrong? What if I hurt more people the way I hurt Draco, because I'm not paying enough attention to what's right and wrong? I would rather suffer a lot myself than hurt someone else._

Then he remembered that he had hurt Draco because he was trying not to hurt the dead, and shut his eyes and shook his head.

_This is ridiculous. I can't be perfect. I need to do something to make it up to Sirius, yes, but maybe not everyone else. And I'm going to hurt Draco and my friends some of the time. What I need to do is make sure those are small wounds, just the kind you get from living together—the way Ron and I would row at Hogwarts. Not the big ones._

It felt weird, like trying to put on the wrong pair of glasses. But it was the best thought that Harry could come up with for now, so he wrote his response to Draco's note and then went to send it.

And he hoped that Draco would ask him questions about the way he'd been feeling since the attack on Nihil, because Harry wanted to tell him that the mere thought of him had helped drive away one of Harry's fits.

_I can bear Veritaserum. I can bear anything, as long as I can have Draco with me again._


	23. Halfway to Forgiveness

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Twenty-Three—Halfway to Forgiveness_

Harry stepped into the trainees' library and looked around. His breathing was faster than he would have liked, making a few of the students glance up at him curiously, but everyone went back to studying in the next few moments. Some of their classes had exams, and more than one person who had tried to presume on the instructors' kindness had found out they didn't have much.

Harry looked around several times, hunting for the perfect private place for his and Draco's conversation. He finally decided that one of the corners a bookshelf protected was the best they would find. Most of the trainees didn't like to use that corner since it contained books most people didn't use often and was heavy with dust. Harry wound between the aisles to it and sat down at the table.

How should he greet Draco?

He had thought of trying for a dramatic gesture, like laying his wand on the table and sitting pointedly back from it, but that could alienate Draco. It was amazing, all the things that he didn't think he could do once he admitted that he didn't know Draco as well as he'd thought.

He studied the table dubiously, then shook his head. Maybe the best thing to do was sit back in the chair, upright, paying attention, so Draco would know he took this meeting seriously, but not looking too anxious, in case that put him off.

Harry managed about five minutes of that before the urge to move became too strong. He scratched the back of his neck, staring between the shelves at the door of the library. _I wish he would show up already and get this over with._

It had seemed like a good idea to get here half an hour early, just so he could make sure he was on time. But in practice, it meant twenty minutes of boredom before Draco stepped in and gave the library an assessing glare.

Harry hesitated. Should he stand up and wave his hand, or would that be too obvious? Draco might not want anyone to know that they were apparently getting back together. But what would happen if he didn't see Harry at all and concluded that he'd missed the meeting on purpose?

Luckily, Draco saw him before Harry had to make that decision. His eyes narrowed, as if he had some particular reason to disapprove of Harry's choice of seat, but he stalked gracefully across the library and sat down in the chair across from Harry. He carried a bag of books with him, and he placed it next to him, one hand brushing it. Harry wasn't sure if he wanted to show that he was intent on studying when their conversation finished, or if that was the way he hid the Veritaserum.

"I didn't know if you would show up." Draco's voice was low and hard-edged.

"I know," Harry said. "Sorry." He had decided to keep his words as simple as possible, and to not react when it sounded like Draco was accusing him of lying. The only way to correct that impression was to take the Veritaserum and tell him what he needed to hear under the influence of the potion.

Draco waited, though for what Harry didn't know, his eyes still narrow. Then he snorted and took the vial of Veritaserum out of his bag. Harry flattened his hands on the table so he wouldn't tap his fingers or clench them and show how nervous he was.

"Three drops on your tongue," Draco said, and handed the vial to him across the table. "I trust even _you_ can manage that."

Harry ground his teeth, but all he did was nod and take the vial. He hoped this worked. Draco's attitude was frustrating.

He carefully removed the cork, put it down next to him so he would remember what he'd done with it, and then tipped the vial and shook it. Draco leaned forwards as if this was the most important thing Harry had ever done, even more so than their compatible magic training. Harry counted three drops, resisting the temptation to count them aloud so that Draco would know, and then corked the vial and laid it down next to him again.

The effect of the Veritaserum was immediately visible. Harry felt as though his mind had separated into two halves. One half controlled his mouth and waited for questions, while the rest of him drifted far away. He knew he would speak the truth and couldn't control what he said, but that seemed unimportant, somehow.

Draco waited some more. Harry didn't know what he was waiting for, and it was hard to care. He would have closed his eyes so that he could enjoy the strange floating sensation a bit more, but his vision seemed to narrow in on Draco's mouth.

Then Draco's lips moved and parted in the first question. Harry would have wagged his tail if he'd possessed one. As it was, he tried to sit up and look as helpful as he could.

"Did you lie about giving up necromancy?"

"No," Harry said. The word came out in the flat, dead tone that Harry knew questioning with Veritaserum produced, but that didn't matter. What mattered was Draco's reaction.

*

Draco leaned back in his chair and tried to adopt a cool stare and relaxed pose. His dignity demanded it.

But he feared that nothing in his demeanor could hide how badly Harry's answer had shaken him—at least, not from someone who wasn't under the influence of a potion that altered their perceptions of time and the truth and what mattered. He was glad that Harry had agreed to the Veritaserum questioning.

Draco swallowed. He had banked so much on assuming that Harry's necromancy _had _continued that he had nothing left to take up the slack.

Harry stared at him with his lips slightly parted and his breath whistling through them, no help at all.

_He gave up necromancy._

Then Draco reminded himself that he didn't know _why_ Harry had given it up, and it was entirely possible that he might disapprove of Harry's reasons. He leaned forwards, feeling energized again. "Why did you give it up?"

"Because my friends were watching me," Harry said.

Draco felt his chest relax and a sneer twist his face. Of course that would be why. And if he didn't keep a constant watch on Harry, then would he take it up again? Draco had no desire to be his lover's babysitter.

"And then because I saw the darkness in Nihil's mind and realized that I would become that way if I kept practicing it," Harry continued, with no change in his tone or sign that he felt this reason was more important than the other.

Draco winced and cast a quick Privacy Charm. He should have done that in the first place, he had to admit, since they were talking about necromancy and Harry was in no position to remind him.

But he hated blaming himself even when he knew it was justified, so he struck out again. "Why did it take that to convince you?"

"I wanted to make it up to the dead," Harry said simply. "I thought giving them a new life would help give them back what they were missing."

Draco shut his eyes and shook his head. "You don't need to make anything up to the dead, Harry. They're _dead_."

He hadn't intended it as a question, but apparently Harry's dazed brain took it that way.

"My godfather died because he went to the Department of Mysteries and fell through a veil," Harry said in a dull, dreamy voice. "He was there in the first place because I believed a vision of Voldemort's and went there. He was there to rescue _me_. So, yes, that one is my fault, even if the other deaths aren't, because I caused it."

Draco clenched one hand into a fist on the table. He wondered what it must have been like for Harry to see someone who was close to him die, and then decided that he didn't want to ask the question. After all, he already knew it had been severe enough to drive Harry to use Dark Arts, something he never would have done normally.

_Do you know him well enough to say that?_

Draco blinked, and then nodded. Yes, he thought he did. He had distrusted every piece of knowledge he had after Harry's lies, but that had been his immediate reaction, and an irrational one. At the very least, he could trust what he had learned about Harry during the years when they weren't dating and Harry had no reason to try and impress him.

Draco shifted in irritation. He hated admitting that he was irrational, and he would have to wait a while before he could come to terms with it, the same way he would take time to accept Harry's answers. He asked another question he wanted to know the answer to in the meantime. "Why do you blame yourself so much, for that and other things?"

There was a flicker in Harry's eyes and a twitch across his forehead. Draco leaned forwards and watched with interest. He knew that such things only happened when the person being asked questions wasn't quite sure of the truth himself. Draco waited, although he couldn't keep from tapping his fingers on the table. It wasn't as though Harry would notice and be irritated by it; his whole mind was consumed in the struggle.

"Because I had fame," Harry said at last, in a slow, hollow voice. "Because I had power. They all kept telling me that I'd defeated Voldemort, I could do anything. Everyone looked at me with big eyes. They thought good and bad things about me, but they _always _believed I could do miracles. And—and what good is that if the only miracles I can come up with are always about saving people from Dark wizards and never anything else? Aurors do that every day. So I wanted to help people I'd harmed, too."

"Do you still believe that you've harmed the dead?" Draco asked the question with almost more interest than resentment. Now that he knew Harry couldn't lie, he was treating him like someone he could be with again. He couldn't _help _it, he thought defiantly, to try and silence the part of his brain that was critical.

More struggle, more flickering eyes.

"Some of them," Harry said at last. "Sirius. Maybe not Remus and Tonks. They died in the middle of battle and I couldn't do anything about it. But—" And he was gasping, showing grief, which only happened with the most powerful of emotions when one was under Veritaserum. "I was right _there_ when Fred died, and I saw him, and I couldn't help him. I need to be able to help him."

"He's gone," Draco said softly. "He's beyond help now. Do you understand that?"

"But what if I _could _do something?" Harry murmured, half in argument and half in answer. "I can do miracles. I should be able to help the dead."

Draco leaned forwards and gripped his arms. "You can't," he said. "You will never be able to. The only things you can do are worse than the disease. Do you really want to bring the dead back and cause them pain and yourself trouble because of your guilt?"

"No," Harry said immediately. "Not just because of my guilt."

Draco settled back into his seat, releasing Harry's arms. He was beginning to regret the choice of the library as a place to meet, though his rooms, full of memories, or Harry's rooms, full of Weasley, would have been even worse. People were giving them curious glances, and he couldn't touch Harry as much as he wanted to.

It seemed as though he had placed a burden on the ground that he had carried for years. He had to believe Harry now. Harry had to tell the truth; he couldn't hide it because that would be "better."

And Draco understood Harry better than he thought he ever had.

_What _would _it be like_ _to be told that you could achieve miracles if you just put your mind to it, and then have to put up with the limitations of the ordinary, everyday world? I don't think I would adapt well. If I had the power that I wanted, and then I came into a situation where it didn't work, it didn't matter, how would I cope?_

That still didn't excuse the stupidity Harry got up to in the name of saving people, of course. But it gave Draco some understanding of the stupidity.

"What do you feel about me, Harry?" Draco asked, after a reflective pause. "Do you love me?"

"Yes." Glazed though they were, Draco had the impression that Harry's eyes had focused on him desperately. "I never wanted to lose you. I lied to you about the necromancy because I thought you would turn away from me for even considering it."

"I didn't want you to do it," Draco said. He couldn't prevent himself from sounding fierce. If Harry even considered something like this, he was still stupid, though maybe Draco could have done something to keep the stupid desire from reaching maturity. "But I would have listened if you told me about it."

Harry nodded, slowly, dreamily, but his forehead wrinkled as though he was searching for an answer again. Draco wondered whether he really believed Draco's words.

"Listen." Draco leaned across the table and clasped Harry's wrist tight. He couldn't respond now, not really, because of the Veritaserum, but there would be nothing wrong with his memory once he woke from the potion. "I won't think that you broke your promise simply because you had a dream or a desire or a wish. That's why I wanted you to talk to me in the first place, because I wanted to know about those things and keep them from growing."

Harry struggled hard again. Draco frowned. The Veritaserum had been right and necessary, he reminded himself. He had no reason to feel guilty about having used it.

"You—hated me," Harry finally said, tongue clumsy with slowness but not as much as before. The Veritaserum must be wearing off, Draco thought, and he would have to act quickly, because there was one more question he wanted to ask.

"No," Draco said. "I resented you, but I wouldn't have cared so much about your betrayal if I didn't care about you." He hurried past the words, because he thought they exposed him unforgivably, and hurtled into the last question. "Why didn't you come and talk to me before this?"

"Tried," Harry said briefly. "Wanted to." His face smoothed out a little as he stopped fighting the Veritaserum. "You didn't listen to the apologies, and I didn't want to hurt you. Didn't want to do anything at first, but I wanted to apologize, and then you didn't accept them, and I thought it might be better if I stayed away. But it wasn't." He raised one of his hands and raked it through his hair, showing that he was definitely recovering from the potion.

Draco shook his head, the anger rising up again in spite of the resolve he had made to try and suppress it, and in spite of the idiocy that it was to argue with someone under Veritaserum. "I wanted to hear your apologies. I _did_," he protested, when Harry looked at him skeptically. "But how could I believe you with all the lies you told? You might have said you were sorry just to get me to relax my vigilance, so you could go back to the necromancy."

"You have to trust me sometime," Harry snapped, his eyes brilliant, the glaze gone. "You believed that I'd done necromancy."

Draco sneered. Granger had tried to make the same point, and it made no more sense to him now than it had then. "I had physical evidence of that. As to why I'm finding it hard to trust you, whose fault do you _think_ it is?"

Harry lowered his head, but his hands closed into stubborn fists on the table.

Draco tried to control his breathing. It felt as though he'd been pelting through the corridors for hours, running non-stop, the way he had run around the lake at Hogwarts sometimes to control his intense desire to run _away_. This time, though, it was sheer anger that made him this way. How _dare _Harry act as if he was trying to pin the blame on Draco? How dare he try?

"I'm sorry."

Draco blinked. He had been braced for another exchange of confusing, hostile words with Harry, and this felt as if he'd just taken a step into thin air instead of onto the level floor he knew should be there. "What?"

"I'm sorry I did that." Harry sighed and looked up at Draco. His face was drained of anger. Draco could see the exhaustion now that he'd missed, or that he hadn't been looking closely enough at Harry to see. "I realized the truth about necromancy when we fought Nihil, and I realized how much I was in love with you. _You _were the one who saved me from Nihil, the thought of you. It had to be." He licked his lips nervously, while Draco tried to comprehend this new balm, or gift, or peace offering, or whatever it was. "And you're helping me to control the fits, too."

"What?" Draco asked sharply. This was another jolt.

"My fits came back," Harry said. "When I didn't have the necromancy anymore. The guilt needed some outlet, and I think the fits are one of those." He was talking more wildly now, staring at Draco's fingernails as if he wondered whether Draco would try to scratch his eyes out. "I've had a few in the last week, but this afternoon when I started having one, I fought it because I knew I had to be on time to meet with you, and it stopped."

Draco could think of nothing whatsoever to say.

That Harry should have told him about the fits earlier? But then Draco would have thought he was lying, perhaps trying to manipulate Draco into returning to his side, and he hadn't been allowing Harry to talk to him anyway.

That Harry should give him more details? It sounded as though there was little else to tell—at least, little else that Harry would think was important. That was something else Draco _did _know about him. Harry didn't see the point in going through the details of something that had happened to him because he thought it was enough if others knew it had happened.

Besides, scolding Harry might make him recoil or shut his mouth and not tell Draco when the next fit happened. And Draco was tired of the silence even more than he was tired of the lies.

"That's…remarkable," he said. "I mean, that the thought of me could help you fight them off. But I don't like the idea of your having these fits, Harry. There must be _something _we can do to help you control them."

Harry waved a dismissive hand, the way Draco had almost known he would. "They're guilt. They have to be, because of how regularly they started again after I stopped necromancy. If I can't make things up to the dead, the fits at least ensure that I don't forget them."

Draco opened his mouth to explain yet again how Harry didn't _need _to make things up to the dead, because it wasn't his fault they had died—

And then stopped.

What would be the point of going through this again? Harry already knew all the arguments Draco would make; Draco knew his. It would take sustained time to work through Harry's guilt and decide how much of it was justified and how much he could shed—and persuade him that shedding it was a good idea. Draco wanted things solved as quickly as possible, but that wasn't going to happen if he dated Harry.

_Maybe that's part of the problem, _Draco decided, thoughts moving through his head like insects in amber as Harry watched him earnestly. _I wanted Harry to apologize as quickly as possible, but I wouldn't have believed him if he did. This was the only way, to let some time pass and to try and accept it now. I'm impatient—impatient for understanding, for power, for perfection—but it has to take longer._

Now the question was, of course, whether he could commit to staying with Harry for as long as it would take.

He licked his lips and sat up straight. "Listen to me, Harry," he said. "I'm not going to insist that you be under Veritaserum for any conversation we have."

Harry arched an eyebrow, and Draco could _feel _the sharp edge of the sarcastic remark poking at his throat. But Harry managed to hold it in. "Fine," he said curtly.

"But you are going to have to tell me as much of the truth as you can," Draco said. He sounded too insistent to himself, whinging, but that was just the way it would have to be. He tried to push the present out of his mind and think about the future. "If you don't feel you can tell me the truth—if it's your friends' secret, for example—then at least tell me _why _you're not telling the truth. I'll understand."

Harry gave him a skeptical look, then sighed and bowed his head. "You probably will, for all I know," he muttered. "I told you that I felt I didn't know you at all."

Draco nodded. "And because you did the talking, I'm the one who gained knowledge in this conversation. I don't—I think I've forgiven you, mostly, but not yet, not for everything." He stopped, because his words were drifting in the direction of a whine again. He took a deep breath and started over. "So you should get to know me."

Harry ducked his head and peeked up through his fringe. "I'd like that," he said, a slow smile moving across his face like a beam of sunlight.

Draco caught his breath, and then told himself not to be ridiculous. "Good," he said. "So. We'll continue speaking from here on out and see what happens?"

Harry nodded, then reached across the table and squeezed Draco's hand. Even though Draco had been touching him before this, it still felt as though Harry had sent electricity directly into his veins when he did that. "Friends?" Harry asked.

"Yes," Draco said, finding it hard to speak. "And partners."

Harry didn't take the obvious route and say that they'd never exactly stopped being partners in the first place, so Draco didn't have a reason to declare them back to being there now. He just shut his eyes and nodded.

*

Harry came out of the library feeling as though the Veritaserum had left sticky strands like spiderwebs in his mind. His ears rang with Draco's warnings about not forgiving him completely yet. His muscles ached from being so tightly coiled, and his tongue ached from speaking the answers to Draco's questions.

Despite that, he was grinning.

_I said it. We'll survive._

_But whether we _live _or not is a different story._


	24. Inadequate

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Twenty-Four—Inadequate_

Finding their way back to safe footing was a strange process, Harry quickly discovered. He had known that not all their problems would be solved when they walked out of the library, but he hadn't realized that one of the worst ones would be the way that other people reacted to them.

Weston and Lowell both nodded when they showed up together to their next training session in compatible magic. Weston's nod was grimmer than Lowell's.

"When the next argument tears you apart," she said quietly to Harry, during a point in the session when he and Draco were both leaning against opposite walls and panting, "perhaps you will come to us first."

Harry looked up, ready to say something angry, but she had already moved away. When he looked across the room, he saw that Lowell had been standing in a similar position with respect to Draco, and the eyebrow he raised was met with a grimace from Draco.

_How could we come to you, when you would have immediately tried to arrest me for using Dark magic? _Harry thought, as he stood up and prepared for the next duel-like exercise that Lowell and Weston would have them try. _I know that you're committed to training us, but I trust you to be Aurors first and our mentors second._

Then there were Ron and Hermione.

They weren't bad. Harry could never say that. They were trying to be supportive. But he thought they were giving Draco less credit than he actually deserved, and he was glad Draco wasn't around to hear a conversation they had in Ron's rooms two days after the Veritaserum talk.

"You're really getting back together with Malfoy, mate?" Ron asked the question while Harry was in the middle of a sentence for his Stealth and Tracking essay, which of course he had put off until the last minute. How could he worry about the ethics of tracking someone with Dark magic when he was worrying about Draco all the time? That already used up his month's supply of concern right there.

Harry finished the sentence so he wouldn't forget it, and then looked up and nodded. "Yeah. I apologized, and he finally listened to me." He hadn't mentioned the specifics of the talk, because Hermione would worry about the Veritaserum and Ron would explode.

"But—" Ron scratched his ear for a moment, seemed to search for a subtle way of saying what he wanted to say, and finally gave up. "Are you sure you want to?"

"Yes," Harry said. He pushed the essay aside and concentrated on Ron. "Why? Did you hear something that makes you think I shouldn't?" He highly doubted that, or at least it wasn't a rumor that could have any impact on Harry, but it was best to seize Ron's hints and teasing head-on.

Ron blinked and sat up. "Not really," he said. "I was just thinking about something." He folded his arms, probably because of the skepticism that Harry could feel creeping into his own expression. "Now, just listen to me, mate. It's a chain of thought that came to me the other day. You should be able to follow it, since it's so simple."

Harry winced. Sometimes, he did think Ron was doing something stupid, but he didn't mean to make him _feel _that way.

"All right," he said, folding his arms and doing his best to give Ron an encouraging smile. "Go on."

Ron smiled smugly and then stood up and began to pace around the room. Harry watched him obediently, even though he was thinking that he would have rather been with Draco.

"Being with Malfoy seems to make you unhappy," Ron said. "It worries you. Either you were getting upset with me and Hermione—and we did some stupid things—or you were getting upset with him. Or there's something else wrong, like the necromancy, that gets between you and causes explosions." He turned around and stared earnestly at Harry. "Do you feel you can tell him everything the way you can tell _us_ everything? Be honest, Harry."

_The thing they all want me to be, _Harry thought, curling his fingers into his palms. _They think it's easy, because I'm "naturally honest." They have no idea how many secrets I had to keep from people in the wizarding world when I first came here, just to have a chance at a somewhat normal life. _"I don't tell you everything," he said aloud. "And you don't tell me everything, either."

Ron stopped pacing and stared at him. "Name one thing we've kept from you," he said after a minute, tilting his head proudly upwards.

"All the details of the times you had sex," Harry said promptly. "And the way that you fought over Ginny—the way I _know _you fought over Ginny. And why Hermione decided to become an Auror when she was talking about going elsewhere for a while. And—"

"Fine, fine!" Ron's ears were turning red. "But that was—personal stuff. It doesn't matter like the secrets you're hiding."

Harry shook his head. "The necromancy mattered because it was wrong and it could have endangered other people. But why does it matter to you whether I have little arguments with Draco, Ron? They're my business. And his," he added, trying to think of how Draco would hear his words and how he would react to them. That was one thing he was trying to do now. "I'll never have a perfectly happy relationship with anyone. All I know is that I want to be with him."

Ron stared at him. "I just hate to see you as unhappy as you have been lately," he said in a low voice.

Harry smiled at him. "I know. And I appreciate the defense and the concern. But if I say that I'm happy and we've made up now, you have to leave me alone, just the same way I would leave you and Hermione alone and trust you to solve it if you rowed."

Ron finally nodded and gave the walls of the room a kind of helpless shrug, as if to say that he had tried and Harry had inexplicably kept to his stubborn course. Harry shook his head and turned back to his essay.

*

"Tell me about your childhood."

Draco raised his eyebrows. They were walking together down one of the less-traveled corridors in the trainee barracks, past a bunch of rooms once occupied by trainees who had washed out of the Auror program. The others seemed to feel that that weakness would infect them like a disease. Draco didn't see any reason that this stone-walled, stone-floored place covered with doors was different from the rest of the barracks, and Harry agreed with him once Draco told him it was one place they could speak privately.

"What do you want to know?" Draco tried to keep his voice neutral. He was thinking of the way that he had done normal things, and the way Harry would probably think they were strange simply because he hadn't grown up doing them.

"Who you played with," Harry said, and his voice was wistful. Draco would have liked to ask why, but they were talking about him now. "Did you know a lot of the people you were Sorted into Slytherin with before you went to Hogwarts? Were they your friends? Did you fly with them, or weren't you allowed onto broomsticks? It seemed like a lot of people at Hogwarts didn't know how to fly. What did you want to do when you grew up? Did you have practice wands? Did you pretend to cast spells on each other?"

Draco felt his muscles relax. Questions like this were a lot easier to answer than the one he had assumed Harry was asking: what was it like to grow up with a Death Eater father who was suspected by the Ministry?

Besides, thinking about that part of his life wasn't really hard, unless he let himself think about the difference between Lucius as he had been then and Lucius as he was now.

"I knew Pansy, and Vince, and Gregory, before I went to Hogwarts," he said. "We were friends. Their parents visited my parents and discussed politics, and we would be sent out into the gardens to play."

"I didn't think they would," Harry said, and from the way he turned red when Draco glanced at him, Draco knew he had meant it thoughtlessly.

"What do you mean?" Draco asked quietly. He would keep his voice as light as possible, he thought to himself. He _would_. He wouldn't accuse Harry of being stupid or prejudiced unless he had proof that he was. But it was hard to remember that, sometimes, when Harry had been so stupid in the last few weeks.

"I thought they would let you stay there while they discussed politics." Harry met his eyes and seemed to brace himself, as though he could guess that Draco wasn't so pleased with him. "After all, if they expected you to go into politics, too, why not give you some experience while you were young?"

Draco laughed and relaxed. "It's hard for most adults to make politics interesting for a bunch of seven-year-olds," he said. "My parents were sure I'd have plenty of time to learn what I needed to know later in life. When I started to whine, they would send us off. And yes, I did fly, but the broomsticks were charmed not to rise more than fifty feet off the ground, and we always had house-elves watching us."

It was odd how clearly the memory came back to him: Draco himself hovering in the air, shouting encouragement to Pansy, who had fallen the first time she flew and wasn't sure she wanted to try it again. Vince and Gregory stood behind her, stolidly clutching their brooms and looking back and forth between him and Pansy, ready to react if they needed to. The elf assigned to watch them jumped up and down and wrung its hands, sure that something would go wrong, but not able to stop them as long as they kept within the orders laid down by their parents.

"What kind of games did you play?" Harry asked. "When I learned about the wizarding world, I used to think there were all sorts of marvelous games that wizarding children must have, but I never saw any of them at Hogwarts except a few like Exploding Snap and chess."

"The culture of Hogwarts didn't encourage those," Draco murmured, new memories waking up, "or many games except chess once you were past fifteen, because it was supposed to be good for building political strategy. And Quidditch, of course, but that isn't the same as the others."

"Why, though?" Harry insisted. "What's the difference?"

Draco shot a curious look sideways at him. This was the kind of thing that he hadn't considered, but of course Harry wouldn't know about it the way that someone growing up in it would. Draco thought _he _could see it clearly only because this last year and a half had taught him to see the world in different ways, to question what he'd once thought was reality.

"You're supposed to go straight from child to adult when you hit seventeen," he said. "That's the year most people will come out of Hogwarts, and then you're going to become an Auror, a Ministry flunky, an apprentice, or start training for a mastery. Or otherwise start on your adult career, whatever it is. Most people also get married young and start a family."

Harry nodded, incomprehension clearly written on his face.

Draco sighed. "In practice, of course, no one can do that. So there are ways of separating adults from children before you get that far. You play fewer games. You do harder spells, which are supposed to be what you concentrate on perfecting instead of your skill at Gobstones. You take harder subjects. You're taught, at least if you're in Slytherin, that some of your friendships can stay the same and others will have to change. That way, when seventeen comes, you're not caught as unprepared as you would be otherwise."

Harry stared at him. "What does not playing games have to do with being an adult?"

"They take away from time that I reckon they want you to spend thinking?" Draco shrugged. He had never thought much about it. It was simply a part of his culture and his life, and as he had grown up, the children's games did seem less attractive. "I don't know, but that's the way it is."

Harry fell silent, scowling fiercely. Draco let him do it as they walked to the end of that corridor and then turned a corner.

Then Harry almost visibly shook off his interest in that subject, perhaps because he thought that it had little to do with understanding Draco, and asked, "Did you like being an only child?"

"Having a brother or sister would have been strange," Draco said. This was another question he didn't have to think much about, though this time it was because he had spent time pondering it when he was a child himself. "All the families we knew only had one child, except the Greengrasses, and I think they only had two daughters because they didn't think the older one, Daphne, was pretty enough."

Harry curled his lip, and Draco braced himself for some remark about pure-blood culture. He had thought Harry would prefer the reason Draco had talked about to the one everyone knew about but never voiced: only one child meant less competition for the inheritance. But instead of condemning him, Harry swallowed whatever he'd been about to say and asked instead, voice soft and neutral, "Did you wish for a sibling anyway, though? I mean, even though it would have been strange?"

"No," Draco said. "I would have had to share my parents' attention with them."

Harry gave him a half-smile. Draco didn't know if it was meant to be scornful or not. "You like attention, don't you?"

"Yes," Draco said fearlessly. He was not going to apologize anymore for the things that might make him inadequate in Harry's eyes. He was going to adventure forwards, and if Harry really didn't like him for it, then he was welcome to go away and find someone else. Paradoxically, nearly losing Harry had made Draco think about the ways in which he could stand alone. "If you don't want to give it to me, then I'll take a lover who will."

Harry turned his head from side to side, making his neck crack, instead of answering. Draco waited.

"I just—" Harry said. "I can't always put you first. If you're happy and Ron or Hermione is suffering, then I would have to help them first." His voice was low, but passionate. "Do you understand?"

"Oh, _that_," Draco said. "Of course. But that doesn't mean I'll accept every distraction equally. If you always ignore me and go to your friends first, I don't see any reason for us to stay together."

Harry spun around to face him. "I want to pay attention to you. It's just that I _can't_, always."

"And I'm telling you that's all right," Draco said, standing relaxed and easy and feeling lighter as he realized how simple this was, "as long as it's not _always _that you're paying attention to other people."

Harry exhaled, then nodded sharply and started walking along the corridor again. Draco followed. One fight averted. They would certainly have others. And it wasn't the perfect relationship he had sometimes dreamed of when he looked at his parents' marriage when he was a child.

Then again, that marriage had not been the mirror of perfection that he believed it was.

Draco shook his head. He sometimes wished he could have gone through life with the same attitude he had as a child: that everything was made of glowing colors or deep shadows, and that he would always live within the colors, feasting on dreams. This life he had now was full of breaks and compromises.

On the other hand, this was the life he _had_.

*

"Have you convinced him that he can't be a leader?"

Harry looked up, startled. Ventus had settled beside him at the table in the dining hall where Harry had been waiting for Draco. Harry set aside the apple he'd been half-heartedly eating and picked up the bacon, frowning at her. "What do you mean?"

"Draco," Ventus said, fixing him with those eyes that always seemed slightly mad. They reminded him of Luna's eyes, but Ventus's voice was louder, and she seemed to see things in the world around them fine; she just saw them all _wrong_. "I know that he would be the most effective leader of the resistance against Nihil. Have you convinced him that he can't be one?"

"Of course not," Harry said. "He's never talked about it to me one way or the other. I don't know why you think he wants to be one."

Ventus shook her head. "Anyone can see that he's longing for attention and distinction. He'll be an Auror, but not for a few years yet. I know he went to the War Wizards and they wouldn't take him. And he's your partner, but a lot of people think he's overshadowed by you. If he wants power that doesn't depend on his future or who he's fucking, then this is the best option for him."

Harry choked on his bacon. "I think you have a lot of nerve—"

"That's just because you're not used to people being honest and selfish," said Ventus dismissively. "Look." She unfolded a piece of parchment on the table.

Harry looked, mostly because he wanted her to shut up and go away. He blinked as he saw a map of the kind that Ketchum had taught them to recognize in Battlefield Tactics, though they hadn't yet learned how to draw one. The dotted lines on the map showed possible attacks, the solid ones attacks that had failed. Harry didn't recognize the landscape, though.

"Where did you get that?" he hissed.

"I stole it from the War Wizards," Ventus said, giving him a look that suggested he should have known that. "They have maps of where they think Nihil will attack." She moved her finger down a line covered with circles that meant nothing to Harry; Ketchum hadn't taught them to read lines that looked like that. "Look. This is a place where there's been a lot of sightings of the living dead, but no specific attack. They're gathering there because they think Nihil's planning something, but they don't know what it could be."

Harry glanced at the map for names, and saw none. "Where is it?" he asked, finally having to admit defeat.

Ventus blinked at him. "You don't know your own country?" Harry's glower was apparently enough of an answer, because she rolled her eyes and gave in. "Wiltshire."

Harry caught his breath. Malfoy Manor was in Wiltshire. "How much necromancy are we talking about?" he asked. "Have the Muggles seen the living dead, too? Have they found Nihil?"

Ventus shrugged. "The map doesn't tell me that, only what they've seen and what they're planning to do about it." She traced one of the dashed lines almost reverently. "They have a good plan. The problem is, War Wizards are obvious, and Nihil has no reason to come back to a place where he knows they are. But what if five Auror trainees went there—five people who would make a lot less noise than an army, and two of whom he hunts?" She looked at him slyly. "Nihil might show up then."

"Five?" Harry asked blankly, because his mind was spinning with the possibilities.

"You, your friends, me, and Draco," Ventus said.

Harry frowned at her, trying to make the spinning possibilities calm down so that he could think about things that made sense. "Why didn't you go to Draco first?"

Ventus changed in the blink of an eye, slamming a hand down on the map and leaning in accusingly. "Because he doesn't believe he could be a good leader," she hissed. "Have you talked to him? Have you told him that? Every time I bring up ways that he could acquire power, which I _know _he wants, he smiles at me and changes the subject. He doesn't think he's adequate. Is that your fault?"

"I never thought about him as a leader until you brought this up," Harry admitted, a bit shame-faced. It did seem that he should have thought more about Draco's ambition since it was clearly so important to him. "I never said one thing to discourage him."

Ventus nodded, looking a bit more satisfied than she had, and pushed some of her lank black hair out of her face. "So if I convince you, then you can convince him. Whereas if I went to him, he would only tell you, and then probably pick up some clue in your manner and convince himself he couldn't do it."

"I don't _mean _to discourage him," Harry started to protest.

"Hush, I know." Ventus patted his hand, again reminding him in a weird way of Luna. "But he needs to see that he can do it successfully before he'll really believe in himself, I think. So if we do give him the chance to show what he can do on a mission like this, then he'll either rise to the occasion or he won't, and if he doesn't, then I can find someone else to follow."

Harry narrowed his eyes. "You're talking like this mad mission is an assured thing."

"Isn't it?" Ventus stared at him blandly. "Don't you want to make a difference in the war? I've been listening. The War Wizards can't corner Nihil. They have nothing to lure him in with, and no idea of what he wants. We have both. I have no illusions that we'll defeat him, but we _could _learn something important, if we play this right."

Harry shook his head. "Everyone's trying. Why should we be any more successful?"

"Because we have the combination of skills that we need to win," Ventus said. "My fighting skill, and my determination. Draco's leadership skills, assuming he has any. Your compatible magic, and Draco's. Your friend Hermione's intelligence; she can help us set up the trap. And your friend Ron's loyalty."

Harry licked his lips. The vision Ventus presented was tempting, and yes, he did want to do something about this war. At the moment, with no new attacks but also no new information, the Ministry was reduced to trying to appear wise and solemn, while in reality everyone crouched tensely in the strange silence and waited for what was going to happen next.

"We don't know that we can trust you," he said, finding the objection that Hermione and Ron would surely raise and which would have the most weight with Draco at the moment.

"Test me under Veritaserum, if you need to," Ventus said, with a shrug. "I don't want to jump right into this, anyway. We'll need to think up a plausible reason to be in Wiltshire, so that Nihil has no reason to suspect this is a trap. You need time to learn to trust me. And since I don't think there's any way we can defeat him at the moment, we have to make up our minds what we want to learn and how we're going to learn it."

A sharp, sweet shiver ran through Harry. This was what he most missed from Hogwarts, the mysteries and how to solve them. There was no making progress with the mystery of Nihil, ordinarily, but at least this sounded different.

"Let me talk to Draco," he said.

Ventus raised an eyebrow. "Of course," she said. "Between you two, he's the smart one."


	25. Surprising

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Twenty-Five—Surprising_

"Why in the world should we trust her?"

Draco could have smiled. Granger had come right to the heart of the issue.

Of course, since Ventus was the one who called herself his friend, it was incumbent upon him to defend her. He cleared his throat and stood. Granger shifted her sharp gaze to him at once, her chin coming up in the way that Draco suspected she might have liked to raise her wand. Even though they were all gathered in Weasley and Harry's rooms, they were not _together _in any important way. Draco knew Granger and Weasley had actually objected to him attending this meeting at first, and had relented only because there was no way that Ventus would have given them the map and her knowledge without his presence.

"She said that we could use Veritaserum," Draco said. "And that's what I plan to do. There's no reason for us to trust her without it, that's true. I'm also curious as to how she managed to get that map away from the War Wizards, who guard their treasures with notorious care."

"Where are we going to get Veritaserum?" Granger leaned forwards aggressively. Draco watched her and wondered if he had imagined her sympathy after Harry had first committed his crime of necromancy. Or perhaps what he had thought earlier had been true, and such sympathy had been an overflow of an emotion that always remained faithful to Harry.

"I have some," Draco said.

He might as well have said that he had the Draught of Unending Plague. Both Weasley and Granger sat back in their seats to put as much distance between them as possible, and Granger fumbled for her wand. Draco raised an eyebrow. In some odd way, he was enjoying this confrontation. It showed Weasley and Granger for what they were without requiring that Draco defend himself.

Because of the other person in the room.

Harry hissed in exasperation and jumped to his feet, standing between Draco and his friends' wands. "What the fuck is your problem?" he asked. "How can you put up with the knowledge that I practiced necromancy better than the knowledge that Draco can get us Veritaserum?"

Draco thought that little display worthy of being rewarded with a touch on the back. He reached out and trailed his fingers slowly down Harry's spine. Harry blinked back at him with startled eyes, then blushed and ducked his head.

Weasley snorted. Draco thought his quick eyes had caught that touch, and it was as clear as sunlight that he didn't like it. "You're our friend, Harry. He's not."

"And not worthy of being trusted even if I vouch for him?" Harry shook his head. Draco couldn't see the expression on his face, but he could imagine it, and he mentally winced. Harry's friends would not be having an easy time of it at the moment. "Wait," Harry went on after a moment, his breath violently catching. "Is the only reason you excused the necromancy because I'm your friend, and not because you thought it might have happened for an understandable reason? That's what you told me."

_Oh, this is sweet, _Draco thought as the two Gryffindors exchanged uneasy glances. _Yes, tell him lies and me the truth, and see what happens when we have the ability to bring our minds together._

"It's not like that, Harry," Granger said at last, with a careful accent and a flutter of her eyelashes that made Draco hope she never tried to flirt her way out of trouble. "We just wanted to support you at a time when you were obviously troubled."

"And now I'm not," Harry said, in a tone that could have worn stone away, "so you can tell me the truth."

"We hate that you did Dark magic," Weasley said, with his characteristic bluntness. "But we still want to support you because you're our friend. So that's why we said that."

Harry seemed to struggle for a moment before he nodded acceptance. Draco sighed. He would have liked to stretch this conflict out further, but in the end it would distress Harry, and that was enough pain for him, too, to outweigh the pleasure of tormenting Weasley and Granger further.

Harry sat down again and said, "Let's concentrate on how we're going to make sure that we trust Ventus."

"Veritaserum seems to be the only candidate," Granger said reluctantly, though she turned her head and glared at Draco again. "But I want to make sure that we're all there, so we can hear the questions that Malfoy asks her, and the answers she gives."

"I wouldn't have it any other way," Draco lied smoothly, though there were many ways he would have it. He had hoped for a private conversation between just himself, Harry, and Ventus, but Ventus had insisted that they needed Harry's friends for this plan, and she was the one who held the knowledge that would make it happen. Draco smiled a bit as he remembered the look of frustration on Harry's face when he realized that.

Draco could accept the terms of her bargain. He was used to negotiating with Slytherins, and if Ventus had attended Hogwarts at all—which he was not convinced of—he knew she had been in Slytherin.

"Then we only need to set up a time when this is going to happen," Granger said. She still sounded unhappy about it.

"One that acknowledges my convenience and hers as well as yours," Draco said quickly. It would be just like Granger and Weasley to pick a time when they couldn't come, and then throw a fit and confront Harry with this proof of their "treachery" when they didn't appear.

"Of course." Granger gave in with an ill grace. "What about this weekend, in the evening? I know that none of us have classes then."

"That's usually the hour when I study for my essays," Draco said, simply to be difficult.

Granger's eyes could pierce like a unicorn's horn when she wanted them to. "Then I reckon you'll simply have to do the research earlier and write them before Monday morning, won't you?"

Draco grimaced, but nodded. He had brought that on himself. He could have left well enough alone and it wouldn't have happened.

Later, as they walked back to his rooms from Weasley and Harry's, Harry halted him with a hand on his arm. Draco looked around curiously, wondering if Harry had sensed something or someone lurking in the shadows. The corridors around them were still and silent, which didn't necessarily mean anything.

"I want to thank you for trying."

Draco blinked and faced Harry again. "What do you mean?"

"With Hermione and Ron." Harry rubbed the back of his neck and stared moodily into the distance, as if posing for the official portrait of the Chosen One that the Ministry had wanted to commission. "I know it can't be easy, when they're being difficult and acting in a way that you would despise. I think we all still have parts of Hogwarts in us, and they're looking at you and thinking 'Slytherin.'" He turned back then and raised an eyebrow at Draco. "Just the way you look at them sometimes and think 'Gryffindor.'"

Draco nodded, and even managed to smile wryly at himself. Having Harry acknowledge that he was making more of an effort to get along than he had to meant—much, so much that he didn't want to voice it.

"Do you ever think that I'm a Gryffindor?" Harry's voice was lighter and he wore a grin, but Draco didn't think the question light at all, or unimportant. This was another part of their process of getting to know each other, and Draco desperately wanted to give the right answer.

"Sometimes," Draco said. "Other times, you act Slytherin. And sometimes, you're only Harry Potter. As much as I get exasperated and want to rage at that, I knew that side of you better than any of the rest, and I know I should have chosen a different partner if I wanted to live an untroubled life."

Harry's smile was melting, sweet, and many other things that Draco would not have tried to describe. For the first time since their argument, he leaned in for a kiss before he said farewell.

Draco gave it to him, and watched him walk down the corridor, shaking his head before he stepped into his own rooms and shut the door behind him.

*

"Ask me whatever questions you like." Ventus's voice didn't sound any different when she was under Veritaserum than it did when she was normally speaking, which made Harry glance at the vial he held and wonder if it had worked. Then he dismissed the notion. Draco was a Potions expert, and surely he would have noticed if there was something off about this potion.

Harry leaned back in his chair and nodded to Draco. He thought Draco should go first, since he was the one Ventus's plan most directly affected, and Hermione had reluctantly agreed. Hermione was leaning forwards in her chair, though, hands clasped on her knees, and Harry knew she was ready to add any amplification to Draco's questions that she thought necessary.

"Why do you want to fight so much?" Draco asked. He was draped over his chair, eyes half-lidded, body seemingly relaxed until you looked closely. Harry had seen him explode from such a position into a standing leap when they were in Combat.

The memories caused an unfortunate lack of relaxation in Harry's body. He swallowed and looked away.

"Because that's what I'm good at," Ventus said simply. "When I was a child, I was so much better at offensive magic than defensive magic that my parents thought something was wrong with me. I can barely do simple household cleaning charms. I could manage hexes when I was seven. And I'm good at unarmed Combat. My father's a War Wizard, and he knew people who could train me. I didn't get to fight in the war with You-Know-Who because there was so little actual _fighting._ I want to now."

Draco's eyebrows crawled up his forehead. Harry felt a private burst of gratitude that nothing _he _did had ever sent them that high. "Why become an Auror and not a War Wizard, if you have one of those in the family?" He sounded wistful, and Harry reached across the space between them and squeezed his hand. Draco squeezed back without taking his eyes from Ventus.

_I almost think he's jealous of anyone who has something he doesn't, _Harry thought, _whether or not it's something that's reasonable for him to have._

"Because the War Wizards aren't on the battlefield more than once a decade, if that," Ventus said. Her voice sharpened a bit, but Harry thought it was with frustration, rather than because she was struggling against answering the question. He would let Draco make the final determination on that, though. "They spend most of their time training. I've _trained _all my life. I'd be a freelance duelist if there was any work for them besides teaching other people. Aurors are the closest things in the wizarding world to people who get to fight."

Harry looked at Draco. Draco blinked and rubbed his face. "Incredible as it seems," he murmured, "she's telling the truth. That might be one reason her manner didn't change much when the potion began to affect her. She was telling the truth all along, so what we see is familiar."

It wasn't a question, but Ventus answered it anyway. "Why should I lie? I'm not important. Fighting is important. I would have told you more about me if you asked, but you wouldn't have believed me."

Harry shook his head. He wondered what in the world he should make of this. Ventus sounded almost as eager to fight Nihil as Harry had been to end the threat of Voldemort, but she was doing it for her own selfish reasons instead of to save the world. Was that a good or a bad thing?

Draco hunched forwards in his chair. "What was the reason you approached me to become the leader of your little fighting band instead of Harry? Why not lead yourself?"

"Potter isn't self-confident enough to be a good leader," Ventus said. "He wants someone to tell him what to do instead of telling others what to do."

Harry opened his mouth, then shut it again. It was true he wasn't comfortable giving orders. What if people died because of them? He had liked teaching Dumbledore's Army much better, where people could argue with him if they had a better idea and it wasn't a life-or-death situation, so not as much would happen if he was wrong.

"And I don't fight by myself because armies have a better chance of survival," Ventus said.

"Why do you care so much about surviving?" Draco asked, swift as a lion. "I thought fighting was the only important thing."

"Oh, it is," Ventus said. "But if I die, then I can't fight again. And I want to have more than one fight."

Draco snapped his fingers, and Harry realized he didn't know him well enough to say whether that was a gesture he was using to dismiss Ventus's answer or an expression of frustration. "Where did you get the map?"

"My father often trusts me with such things," Ventus said. "And I know good copying spells because I had to copy the books I studied so much when I was a child."

Draco frowned and turned to Harry, lowering his voice. "What do you think? It sounds authentic, and I know the Veritaserum is real and works. It's the same vial I used for you." Harry smiled in spite of himself at the reassurance. "But she also sounds mad," Draco went on in a grave voice. "I don't know if we want her as part of the group after all, if all she cares about is fighting."

"Don't whisper," Hermione said in irritation before Harry could answer, crowding up beside them. "I think we should all discuss what she's saying."

"Yeah," Ron said, a bit belated, arriving behind her, but with his face red with determination. Harry had learned long ago how to distinguish that from his embarrassed flush.

"Draco was saying that Ventus might not be a good person to fight beside, because she's so focused," Harry said. "Why don't we ask her whether she would protect the rest of us in a fight or not?"

Draco gave him a slow, sweet smile of the kind that Harry had missed most, and then leaned across and added a quick kiss. "Let us ask that," Draco said, before Harry could respond, and turned around to look at Ventus again.

"Don't we get a say in this?" Ron demanded. He was glancing back and forth from Hermione, who looked too stunned to speak, to Harry.

"No," Draco said. He asked, "If armies fight better, does that mean that you would stand beside us and try to keep us from falling to Nihil's forces if we ran into an attack?"

"No," Ventus said.

Harry winced; Hermione hissed; Ron pointed an accusing finger and said, "Ah-_ha!_" Draco stood as if turned to a statue, arms folded and face still.

"I wouldn't do that because I'm pants at defensive magic," Ventus went on. "Like I told you. I would hope that someone else could defend you and then attack the people who attacked you so that they wouldn't be a problem anymore." Her face acquired a dreamy smile. Harry wondered if her daydreams were full of fallen enemies, and shuddered a little.

Draco snickered. Harry thought it might have been at _their _expressions rather than Ventus's words. "That's acceptable," he said. "Now, we—"

"It's _not _acceptable!" Hermione said loudly. "How can we go into battle with someone we can't trust to protect our backs?" Her glare swept over Draco as well as Ventus. It was fleeting, but Harry saw it, and reacted without thought.

"What do you mean by _that_, Hermione?" he hissed, stepping towards her and ignoring the way that Ron stepped up worriedly and Draco stared at him. "I saw who you looked at."

Hermione clasped her hands in front of her and said, "You can't blame me for doubting. It wasn't long ago that you were doubting yourself."

"I know that you're trying to stand up for me, that you really don't think I'll be happy with him," Harry said, and then his voice began to arch upwards in spite of himself. "But I've decided that I _will_. And you know that he went through questioning under Veritaserum about his connection to Nihil, the same way the rest of us did—"

"Fine, I accept that Malfoy would protect _you_, and that he's not infected with the grief magic," Hermione snapped. "But would he protect the rest of us? Maybe Ventus, since she plays to his vanity. But Ron and I? Don't pretend that he _likes _us."

Harry ground his teeth down, although he wanted so badly to say something like, "You're making it really difficult." But he understood their motivations, as he had just said. It was partially his fault that she and Ron were reacting this way, because he had moped around the place when he and Draco were in the midst of their argument, and that argument had been caused by his practicing necromancy in the first place.

That thought gave him an idea.

"Hermione," he said, "do you trust me?"

Hermione blinked. "Of course," she said. "Why wouldn't I? You've been my friend for years."

"But recently, you had good reason to mistrust me," Harry said, lowering his voice impressively. He wouldn't say the word _necromancy _in front of Ventus, but if Hermione didn't know what he was talking about, then Harry would start thinking she had taken leave of her brains. "How did you decide to take the risk anyway?"

"That was a temporary aberration," Hermione said, and smiled at him as if she thought that he needed the reassurance. "I knew you would recover from it soon enough, and be the same person you always were."

"And it's a temporary aberration that Draco and I fought," Harry said. "You were starting to get along with him before that. Why are you so determined not to now? _Ron _is doing a better job than you are." He jerked his thumb at Ron, who blinked as if he didn't know whether he should be pleased or not.

"Because I know he really hurt you," Hermione said, her jaw thrust forwards so that she looked like a bulldog getting ready to attack. "I don't want to see it happen again, and it will, unless someone keeps an eye on him, because you're far too forgiving for your own good." She narrowed her eyes and shook a finger at Harry as if he were a child who insisted on getting into trouble for reasons of his own.

Harry glanced at Draco. Draco was standing still, his arms wrapped around himself in what Harry thought he would be the only one in the room to recognize as a defensive gesture instead of the arrogant one it appeared.

Draco met his gaze and said nothing. His eyes were clear but unreadable. He was leaving it up to Harry to decide how he wanted to deal with this, which was at once helpful and infuriating. Harry took a deep breath and faced his friends again.

"_I'll _deal with it if it happens again," he said. "This fight was my fault, and if the next one is his, then—well, I'll deal with it," he repeated, knowing that he sounded somewhat lame, and reading Hermione's opinion in the way she raised her eyebrow. "But it might be mine again, and then you ought to support _him_ instead of running around glaring at him and implying that he's a traitor."

"You're our friend," Ron said quietly. "We'll always support you no matter what, Harry."

Harry had to clamp his teeth down again, because he was remembering the way Ron hadn't supported him when he first became friends with Draco, but talking about it now would serve no purpose. And Ventus was still there, absorbing everything with big eyes and ears, though Draco seemed to be the only one besides him who remembered that.

"I know," he said. "I know you want to. I'm grateful to you for it. I l-love you for it." Ron's ears turned red, and Harry knew he would join Harry in trying to make sure there was no necessity for a repeat of those words. "But Draco deserves some support, too. If you both support doing what's right, you'll have to side with him sometimes. You don't have to talk to him in a friendly way or pat his back, I suppose, but you ought to stop suspecting him of doing things that he would _never _do."

"You don't know that," Hermione started to say, and Harry knew she was going to argue that anyone might become a traitor under the right circumstances, because she had a passion for hypothetical situations and correcting generalizations.

Harry gave her a harsh look, and Hermione's voice faded. She looked down and straightened her robes for a few minutes. Then she glanced up, at Draco and not Harry, and managed a nod that wasn't too choppy.

"I'm sorry, Malfoy," she said. "I hope you can forgive me."

Draco finally unfolded his arms and said, "I most certainly shall." He left Hermione visibly wondering how to take the polite words combined with the freezing tone, and turned to Ventus. "Won't someone come searching for the map you stole?"

Ventus gave him a patient look and started speaking as if they'd never had that interlude. Harry heartily wished they hadn't had to have it, but he couldn't let Draco go undefended. "I told you. My father trusts me, and at this point it's a copy. I restored the original one to its place."

"Have you had any contact with Nihil?" Draco asked.

"No."

"With his associates, Nusquam or Nemo?"

"No."

"Do you think there's a chance that you could be persuaded to turn aside by any plans of his?" Harry asked. "Would you fight us instead of fighting him if he offered you a greater chance to go into battle?"

He felt the light, surprised touch of Draco's eyes, but he kept his head turned away, his gaze fixed on Ventus. Whether Draco was surprised because Harry had the wit to ask such a question or because it was just a question that wouldn't have occurred to him, Harry didn't think he wanted to see it.

Ventus blinked. Then she smiled. "No," she said, with an air of triumph that made Harry wonder if the answer was not as much a surprise to her as to the rest of them. "I need to know that my fighting is for a cause I consider right. Nothing could make me consider Nihil's cause right."

"Why?" Harry asked, determined to push on. "It could be very tempting, if he was to teach you the magic he knows. He probably knows Dark spells that would augment your fighting."

"I want to _learn _the magic," Ventus said fiercely. "The instructors can teach me about being an Auror. But the spells that become part of my repertoire are all ones that I research on my own."

Harry shot a glance at Draco, wondering if he was thinking the same thing Harry was. Such a tactic would make Ventus a powerful, potentially dangerous, and definitely unpredictable opponent.

"_Are _you Nihil?" Draco asked. "Or Nusquam or Nemo?"

"No."

"Are you one of his servants?"

"No."

"Have members of your family been recruited into his group, or disappeared mysteriously?"

"No…"

The interrogation went on, with all the answers being satisfactory, and Harry began to hope that they could finally start thinking of the attack they would plan on Nihil in Wiltshire.

More precious than the promise of finally doing something, though, was the way that Draco turned one eye on him from time to time, and studied him with fragile respect and—

And something that might have been trust.


	26. Making Plans

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Twenty-Six—Making Plans_

_Dear Draco: _

_Matters would be much easier if you yielded to your father. _

That was the first sentence of the latest letter his mother had sent, at least on the surface, and the only one that mattered. The other sentences were all variants of the original idea, twining around each other in the sort of nest of writhing word-snakes that Narcissa was so good at. Draco skimmed the letter, just so he could be familiar with what his father would see if it came to that, and then read the hidden message.

It was short, and discouraging.

_The potion is not taking effect, or taking effect in only a few distortions of his ideas. I fear what will happen next. He is not violent towards me, but talks more often of forcing you to obey him._

Draco had spent the night revising Dark potions and spells of the kind that Lucius might use, and finding none that could be cast or employed from such a distance.

Unless, of course, Lucius contacted one of the other trainees or the Aurors under a false name and persuaded them to do as he said…

Draco closed his eyes. His eyes ached from the late night, and his mind ached from trying to imagine and counter all the possibilities. And he had a full day of classes, as well as a meeting with Harry, Ventus, Granger, and Weasley later that night to try to figure out what they were going to do about Nihil and Wiltshire. He really wanted to crawl into bed and go to sleep, but he knew he couldn't.

He sighed and started to shove the books he'd been looking at back into place on the library shelves, then jumped as someone touched his shoulder. He whipped around, hand on his wand, his tongue buzzing with some of the spells he'd just been reading that he could use to defend himself.

Harry shook his head as if Draco's abnormal behavior were completely normal and took the nearest book from him, slotting it neatly back into place. "Relax," he murmured. "It's all right. I came to look for you because I could feel that you weren't in the right place. I'll help you back to bed and tell everyone that you've made yourself sick with too much studying, which is certainly the truth." He slung his shoulder under Draco's arm and held it there as he picked up the books, studying them for a moment before replacing them on the shelves.

Draco watched him hazily. He didn't think Harry was putting all the books back properly, but he also didn't think Harry would care. "What do you mean, about feeling me?" he whispered.

"That sense of each other that Weston and Lowell taught us?" Harry asked, as if he expected Draco not to remember. He snorted a little when Draco gave him a blurry glare. "It was troubling me. I—kind of know where you should be at each point of the day. And you weren't in bed, so I finally had to get up and come see what you were doing. I thought you might be lying wounded in the library or something." He mumbled the last words, his face flushing brilliantly.

"Oh," Draco said at last, when it felt as though far more time had passed than should have while he contemplated that. "Well. I'm fine." But he let his hand rest more heavily on Harry's shoulder than usual, because Harry had cared enough to come find him.

And Harry had probably been practicing with their sense of each other, too, at least more than Draco had. Draco didn't think he could have pinpointed Harry's location that precisely.

"You're not, or why you would be researching in the library at three in the morning?" Harry retorted. He put back the last book and then wrapped his arm around Draco's shoulder, escorting him openly towards his rooms. Draco thought about objecting, and then realized that few people would probably be taken by surprise, given that they had reconciled more or less openly.

"Do you want to tell me about it?" Harry asked.

Draco blinked. Harry's voice had the tone that told him Harry had asked the question more than once. "No," he said. "Not right now. I mean. Maybe later." His words stumbled over each other, and he would have liked to give a more adequate explanation, but he lacked the brainpower to do that at the moment.

Harry seemed to accept it, because he nodded and murmured, "Just remember that whatever hurts you, hurts me."

There were all sorts of things Draco could have said to that, most of them sarcastic. Instead, he shut his eyes and let himself be carried. When they got to the bedroom, Harry tucked him into bed and lingered for a moment, hand resting on Draco's forehead, as if he wanted to reassure himself that Draco wasn't running a fever.

Draco opened his eyes and took Harry's hand in his, kissing it.

Harry's face flushed for a different reason, and he stared at Draco for a time before shaking his head. "I hope you feel better," he said. "Don't worry, I'll tell all the instructors that you're sick." He broke free then, and walked to the door.

"Good night," Draco called after him, dreamily certain that it was important he say it, though he couldn't remember why.

Harry paused and looked over his shoulder. He was silhouetted against the light from the doorway, and Draco wanted to warn him that could be dangerous with an enemy watching. Then he frowned. Where were they? The barracks, or the Death Eater cache, or a battlefield in Wiltshire?

"Good night," Harry replied quietly, and then shut the door. The light closed off, and Draco fell into oblivion.

*

"Why haven't we told the instructors about this? The instructors in the Fellowship, at least. I know that we can't really trust the others."

Harry sighed noiselessly. This was Hermione's latest argument against acting on their own in Wiltshire. It was their second meeting since they had decided they could trust Ventus, and they still weren't close to forming a coherent plan.

Harry could understand why she objected. Except for Draco, none of them really knew the country well, and sending five people up against Nihil sounded crazy in a way that sending a hundred War Wizards didn't. And they still hadn't decided on what they wanted to learn about Nihil, the information they would try to gain that would make all the risk worth it. On the face of it, they were doing a dangerous and a mad thing, and Hermione didn't want one of them to get hurt or die.

But even Ron was starting to look impatiently at her now, although it was Ventus who answered. "I do not know who the instructors are in this Fellowship of yours," she said, spreading her hands over the map, which was flat on a table, "since you will not tell me. But I will share this information only with the four of you. I do not know about you, but I have found my comitatus."

"That's Latin," Hermione said, frowning at her.

"It is," Ventus said blandly, and then bent over the map, drawing a red line of her own with her wand up the side of some hills, and said nothing else.

Hermione frowned more fiercely. Ron touched her shoulder and started to explain, but Draco's cool voice sliced through his words. To Harry's relief, Ron only rolled his eyes before listening.

"A comitatus was a band of wizards who fought together in the days when the wizarding community in each country was disunited and a war was less likely to involve destroying central structures," Draco said, as easily as if he had the book he must have learned the definition from in front of him. Harry looked carefully at him, but Draco seemed normal after his late night and day of sleep, if a little pale. "Each had a specific role to play. They acted together, always, and were loyal only to one another." He turned to Ventus. "An unusual word to use for us, when we have never fought together and you know that the four of us form pairs that leave you out."

Ventus laughed. Harry started. The sound was light and normal, dancing like a rain-shower, and he didn't think he'd ever heard her do it before. "I care most about loyalty to fighting," she said. "And I will trust you until you prove that you can't be trusted."

"When will you know that?" Harry had to ask.

Ventus gave him a contemplative look. "In battle."

"And you don't at all care about not being able to trust us before that?" Hermione demanded. Harry thought she was bothered more by Ventus's calm than she would have been by struggle and argument from Draco. During the last few days, Hermione had calmed down around Draco, though she hadn't completely stopped giving him evil looks or watching him with doubt, ready to pounce if he made a mistake.

But she hadn't had any such fight with Ventus, so perhaps that made it easier for her to express her disbelief openly there.

"Of course not," Ventus said. "Outside battle, anyone can lie. I wasn't with you when any of you took Veritaserum, though I'm sure all of you have. I haven't been friends with you for years. I'm not your lover." Hermione's face flamed, and she cast a look at Ron, the way she tended to do if someone mentioned romance, Harry had noticed. "I can listen to your boasts and your ideas, but I won't _know _that they'll pan out until I see you in action. Action is the final test."

Hermione scowled. "That's insane."

"It's the way I am," Ventus said. "Many things that make sense in my world would be mad in yours, I suspect." Her wand moved sideways, and she whispered an incantation. A sparkling white line joined the red one on the map.

"What plans are you making?" Draco asked, leaning forwards. He had apparently taken the sensible position that, since they couldn't make sense of what Ventus was thinking anyway, they should ask about what she was doing. Hermione at least was quiet. Ron patted her shoulder in camaraderie, and Harry thought he looked at Ventus a bit more thoughtfully than before. He didn't interrupt, though, and Harry was grateful for that. He wasn't asking for his best friends to be perfectly reconciled to this, just to think about it a bit more before they reacted and consider what impact their words could have on other people.

"We must draw Nihil out," Ventus said. She looked up from the map, and Harry stared. She wore a smile that had transformed her face, and she reached out and made a clenching gesture in the air with one hand, as if grasping the reins of an invisible horse. "We know that large-scale attacks like the ones the War Wizards have tried do not work."

"They might if they had someone competent directing one," Draco muttered.

Ventus seemed deaf to this. "So we make a series of small, darting attacks instead. We appear in the middle of what the War Wizards think is the battlefield, close to a spot where the walking dead have been spotted." Her eyes shone with malicious enjoyment, and Harry thought it was the most normal she had looked. "We cast a glamour on a bit of the material they took from Nemo's beasts when he attacked the Ministry, to make it seem as if we've reconstructed the whole thing."

Harry caught his breath. Draco was staring, and Ron and Hermione seemed to have frozen, so it was up to him to state the obvious. "That ought to bring him running if anything will."

Ventus closed her eye in a slow wink at him. "Exactly."

"But how are we going to get hold of one of those samples?" Hermione asked, recovering. "It's all stored in Pushkin's labs, and if he's done any more experiments with it, we haven't heard about them."

"How did I get hold of the map from the War Wizards?" Ventus asked.

"But this isn't something we can copy and put back," Ron said, exchanging a concerned glance with Hermione. "I really think that he'll notice it's gone."

"Leave that to me," Draco said. He was drawing his wand between his fingers, a small smile on his face that Harry didn't like. "I know someone who has an enormous talent for glamours. I believe he can reconstruct the piece we steal well enough to fool Pushkin, as long as I send him a good description."

Harry winced. He knew who Draco was talking about; Draco had told him enough about how Lucius had escaped Azkaban for Harry to know that. But he hated to think about how much it would cost Draco.

He tried to catch Draco's eye, but Ventus nodded and said, "That will do nicely. And we will have other glamours working, glamours that will make it seem as if we have learned their secrets about Apparating in and out of warded buildings."

"Let me see the map," Ron said suddenly.

Ventus handed it to him without pause or comment. Harry wondered if that was strange, and then told himself to give up on the wondering. Thanks to their questioning of Ventus under Veritaserum, they knew she could be trusted with the large things. They would grow used to having her in the group eventually, and until then, it would be worse than nothing to lunge after every gesture she made and question it.

Ron bent over the parchment and studied it in silence for a few moments, then smiled. "These are the best hiding places," he said, indicating several areas on the map in between the lines that the War Wizards and Ventus had drawn.

"How do you know?" Draco asked, with a charged tone that made Harry decide he was thinking about the Weasley and Malfoy feud, and whether the Weasleys might ever have spied out Malfoy Manor. "Have you ever been in Wiltshire?"

"Anyone could see it from looking at the map," Ron replied, so mildly that Harry thought he hadn't really noticed who was asking the question.

"Anyone who played chess as much as you do," Hermione said, looking proudly and fondly at Ron.

Harry relaxed. Hermione might be more reconciled to this trap they were going to set if Ron could contribute to the plan.

"Create a list of the hiding places," Draco ordered, pushing parchment and ink across the table to Ron. Ron started scribbling without looking away from the map. He even paused now and then, tilting his head, as if he were listening to a quiet voice. "Granger, Ventus, start constructing the glamours we'll need to make Nihil and company think we've stumbled on their secrets. Harry and I will be in charge of taking the sample from Pushkin and getting it copied enough to fend off suspicion." He gave a feral smile as he rose to his feet. "I already know what sample I want to use—one that's complex enough that Pushkin shouldn't immediately think of a glamour, but simple enough for my—associate to easily copy."

Ventus turned to Hermione and described a glittering arc through the air with her wand, chattering away in a low voice. Hermione looked reluctant at first, but suddenly opened her eyes wide and leaned nearer. Harry smiled. Yes, that was her look when a new subject intrigued her, and from this point on, Ventus probably wouldn't be able to drive her away with a Cruciatus Curse.

Only when he and Draco left the room did Harry realize that Draco had given out the orders and everyone had obeyed him as naturally as Ventus had claimed they would.

*

It was perhaps the hardest thing he had ever done.

Draco filled his inkwell. He picked up his quill and made sure it was sharpened to a careful point. He spread a fresh sheet of parchment out in front of him and shut his eyes, trying to see the words spilling across the paper in his mind as he could not see them in reality yet.

He waited, and still no inspiration came to him, no miracles of wording or subtle tricks that would make his father agree to what Draco wanted without revealing at least part of Draco's weakness in having to beg.

"Can you do this?"

Harry's voice came from the side, so low and calm that Draco could pretend it was the voice of his own conscience if he wanted to. So that was what he did, answering without opening his eyes. "Yes. I have to. More, I promised Ventus that I would, and she's not the kind of person that you break promises to."

"She would understand." Harry reached out and took his fingers, squeezing them hard enough that Draco felt the blood leave them for a moment. Then he released them, and tingling rushed back into the fingertips. Draco shook them and hissed. "She has so much faith in you that she would accept that you couldn't do it," Harry continued, "and she would be able to come up with something else. She's a lot more intelligent than I thought she was at first."

Draco sighed. "And what do you think your friends would say?" It was so much easier talking to Harry with his eyes shut that he resolved to remember the tactic for the future when he was exasperated. "Something very _complimentary_, no doubt, about my inability to do as I had promised."

"They're still learning their way around trusting you," Harry said, "but the latest reasons for that are my fault, not yours. They'd be a lot more comfortable with you if I hadn't fucked it all up with the necromancy."

Draco opened his eyes, because he had to see the expression on Harry's face just then. Harry was leaning forwards across the table, his eyes bright and fixed on Draco. It struck Draco that this was one of the few times Harry had been in his rooms since their row. If it bothered him, or if he had memories leaping from every piece of furniture, as Draco knew he would have in the same situation, Harry didn't show it.

"I never thought you would say that," Draco murmured.

"Once, I never thought so, either." Harry met his gaze, and Draco could see a few beads of sweat forming on his brow this time, but he kept speaking with no apparent effort. "I was stupid enough to think I could just do the necromancy and then back away from it and put it down once I had what I wanted."

Draco blinked. He had to know this, even though he should be thinking about how he would write his letter to Lucius, not thinking about the wound they had managed to cure. "Quite apart from the addictive effects of the necromancy," he said, "what did you think we would say about several _dead _people suddenly coming back to life?"

"That's why I was a fool," Harry said, lifting and then dropping one shoulder. "I never thought that far ahead. I didn't dare to. If I had, then maybe I would have realized how stupid it was." He paused, blinking at a corner of the ceiling. "And maybe that's why I could turn away from it more easily than otherwise," he added softly. "Because I'd had that nagging suspicion all along that I shouldn't do it, that there was something wrong beneath the surface."

Draco could have said many things, but he contented himself with a small nod and close attention to the surface of the parchment. It wasn't less blank for all his talk with Harry, but he _did _feel better about it than he had.

And he had decided on his course of action, because there was only so much left once he had discarded the absolutely unacceptable. He grimaced and began to write, beginning with his father's full and formal address.

_To Lucius Malfoy, head of the Malfoy Line,_

_I come to you asking not for complete surrender, but for compromise. You would despise me if I crawled to your feet, panting and licking like a dog, and asked you to forgive me. But I can come to you as the leader of a nation defeated in war and ask for good terms, can I not?_

_There is a certain thing I need done, and no one but you has the skill in glamour to do it. A piece of an animal's body must be removed from the labs of one of my instructors. He will notice that it is gone and be able to deduce who took it by means of spells that I can only guess at—unless he never has the chance to notice its disappearnace._

_Will you create a glamour of the body part for me, and send it to me so that I can substitute it for the reality? You have the skill. You and no one else._

_In return, I will come to you at the end of this month and admit that I was wrong. I will accept a temporary betrothal to Astoria Greengrass, but not one compelled by the betrothal spell. I will negotiate like the leader I wish to become and not like the disobedient child I have acted._

_The body part is a small piece of spine bone, with three vertebrae, each with a half-inch between them. The bone is white, slightly curved between the vertebrae, and with a sheen reminiscent of polished alabaster. The top of the bone has a black smudge the size and thickness of my index finger._

_If you agree, then send me a package containing the glamour and a letter naming the date and place when I am to surrender to you. _

_Your son,_

_Draco._

He set the letter aside until he thought he could deal with reading the treacherous words and looked up at Harry. Harry came to him at once and squeezed his hand with a savagery that made Draco's eyes water and his fingers tingle again. But that was better than being by himself, and he leaned against Harry and closed his eyes, letting his breathing calm from its rushing pace.

He heard Harry shifting around so that he could read the letter. Then Harry said, in a brittle, calm voice, "What will you do to get out of the betrothal?"

"Nothing." Harry surged against him even though he didn't move, and Draco added, "I don't need to, because I'll never agree to it. I'm not going to the meeting with my father."

There was silence, while Harry did nothing except touch his hair. Then Harry murmured, "I don't understand."

Draco sighed. "I have two advantages in this situation that my father doesn't. First, everyone thinks he's in Azkaban right now. They'll think that he's dead soon. He can't move openly to reveal himself, and he's paranoid enough that I doubt he would trust any allies."

Harry nodded, cheek moving against Draco's.

"Second," Draco said, and flexed his fingers and opened his eyes, "he trusts me. He thinks I'll keep my word if I'm going to humble myself to him at all. And he believes that _I _believe in the family honor, and that I love the idea of being a Malfoy more than I love you."

"What happens when he realizes you don't?" Harry's voice was tiny, dazed, and Draco knew he was deliberately avoiding the revelation Draco had just given him.

"Then I sacrifice that advantage," Draco answered.

He didn't speak of what else he was sacrificing. Harry bent over and touched his lips to the skin behind Draco's ear to show he understood.


	27. Complementary Sacrifices

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Twenty-Seven—Complementary Sacrifices_

"We haven't decided what information we should be looking to gather yet."

Harry sighed. He understood why Hermione was worried about this, but he really would have liked to finish the essay he was working on. Auror Coronante didn't believe in holidays.

"This is _important_."

Harry laid aside the parchment and the ink and gave his full attention to Hermione. "More important than classwork?" He'd listen to her, but that didn't mean he'd refrain from teasing her. Sometimes he thought that he'd become less close to his best friends because they couldn't tease each other anymore. Everything seemed so deadly serious.

Hermione, who had a smudge of ink on her cheek that Harry wanted to point out, glared at him. "Of course! They're trying to teach us how to be Aurors, and in the meantime, we're living through it, and putting those skills into practice before they can give us an exam. We have to know exactly what we're doing."

_No wonder she cares so much about this, if that's the way she sees it, _Harry thought, and stood up. "I'll go get Ron and Draco. And Ventus," he added more doubtfully, since he had no idea where she was at this time of the evening.

"No." Hermione leaned forwards insistently. "I think this is something one or two people should decide on first. I have an idea. I want you to tell me if it's a good one," she rushed on, before Harry could state his objections.

Harry hesitated, his hand on the door. On the one hand, Hermione was asking him to make a decision without Draco being here, which Harry knew Draco wouldn't like. On the other, she didn't have Ron here, either, which suggested her reason was what she said it was.

But his memory could burn, at the most inconvenient times, with the image of Draco's eyes when he'd discovered Harry practicing necromancy. Harry didn't want to destroy Draco's trust in him just as it was reviving.

"Let me go get them," he said temperately, and opened the door. "I promise it won't take long. I can send a Patronus to Ventus even if she's not alone, since everyone knows she's been hanging about Draco anyway."

Hermione looked a bit resentful. "What if I just wanted to share something with my best friend?" she asked.

"But we planned on sharing it with the others anyway," Harry said, sliding out into the corridor and hoping he hadn't started another fight. He had a real talent for doing that lately. "This is only going a bit faster than it would be otherwise."

Hermione turned her back on him and didn't respond. Luckily, that meant she saw the smudge of ink on her cheek and went to clean it. Harry hurried off before he could make the row worse.

*

"We need to know who Nihil is," Granger said, bracing her hands on the table as if she intended to lecture to a class and wanted to imitate the stance Ketchum used. "That's important, I agree. But it's not as important as what I've decided on."

"Of course you would think that," Draco said, and ignored the way Harry's elbow poked him in the side. He and Granger had to have a certain amount of confrontations before they could settle down to work amicably together. Draco thought their working relationship might even _proceed_ by confrontations. They always understood each other better after them.

And it did no harm that Draco usually won.

Granger lifted her head like someone smelling a fire not far away. She ignored the restraining hand Weasley put on her shoulder, which Draco was grateful for. Weasley had acted unexpectedly graceful and restrained around him lately, which left Draco unsure how to treat him. At least with Granger, he knew that she still thought of him as a slimy Slytherin, and that made her movements essentially predictable.

"Consider this," Granger said flatly. "Why does it matter if we learn who Nihil is right now, when he can apparently change his identity?"

Draco narrowed his eyes, not wanting to admit that that hadn't occurred to him. "We suspect that Nemo can change his identity. We don't know that about Nihil."

Granger shook her head, bushy hair bobbing so furiously that Draco was surprised it didn't clang or crash. "It makes sense, especially considering the other evidence—or non-evidence—that we've accumulated. Nihil didn't die in his duel with Dearborn, we know that. Or maybe we should say that Nihil didn't _end_, any more than Nemo and Nusquam did. They can't be killed. They can't die. They pass through death and become someone and something else. I think we should learn _how _they do that, and what the transformation means, rather than attempting to learn who Nihil was before he died for the first time. Even if that would be useful information, I don't think we could use it to predict his current personality and inclinations—except the one for revenge." She glanced at Harry. "He's bragged that he's not human. And I don't think that a single personality would survive all the changes that he would have had to go through very effectively."

"It might tell us where he began," Draco argued, but he didn't need Granger's triumphant, eyelids-lowered glance to know that it was a weak statement. Granger was right. They needed to know what happened when Nihil or one of his companions passed through that change and came out on the other side.

_It might even lead to a way to identify them, _Draco thought, his fingers curling into his knee as he thought about it. _And maybe a way to avenge Dearborn._

"How will we learn that?" Ventus was tracing her wand in an idle line over the table. Her expression was bored. "It would be a very fine thing to have, but the battle plan we've set up doesn't permit us to learn it."

"That's where Harry and Malfoy come in." Granger pulled out a thick book and slapped it into the middle of the table as if it were the final argument. Draco peered at it warily. It had no title, and that was always a sign that it was ancient.

"If there was a way to use compatible magic to fight Nihil, I think Lowell and Weston would already have tried it," Harry said.

"Not necessarily, for reasons that we've discussed before," Hermione said, with a warning glance that said they still weren't mentioning their attempt to access Nihil's mind in front of Ventus. "And in this case, it's not compatible magic by itself I want to try. Legilimency, potions, and compatible magic combined should give us the answer we need."

"Oh, I'm glad it won't need to be anything _complicated, _Granger," Draco said.

"Shut up, Malfoy," Granger said, making Harry tense, but she was too self-satisfied to put much malice behind it, and Draco patted Harry's back to ease him. "I know you can do this. I can brew the potions, and you'll know how to use them. And if you can't use at least a bit of Legilimency, you're not the Dark wizard I thought you were."

Her gaze and Draco's crossed like swords. Draco gave a small nod. When it came down to it, Granger wasn't as offensively self-righteous as he'd always been convinced she was. She would break the rules on occasion; their attempt to penetrate Nihil's mind had shown that. She could keep secrets. She would bear insults and come back without exploding all the time and all over the place, the way Weasley would.

Draco could see them becoming allies, which was better than he had ever expected to do with Harry's friends.

"When will this happen?" Ventus sat up and spoke alertly now, a small smile flitting over her lips, as if she saw the battlefield that would be spread out in front of her. "We'll need to time it right, so that Nihil will be distracted with fear and rage and less likely to defend his mind against an attempt to enter it."

"When his fear is greatest," Draco said, the answer coming to him before he had to think about it. "When else would it be? That will mean that we'll need to make sure he sees the glamours, and that he's there himself, not sending someone else to investigate for him. I have to admit, I don't know how we're going to do that part."

He felt a seizure of astonishment within himself as he spoke the words. It would have been impossible for him to admit his incapacity in front of them a short while ago, especially Weasley and Granger. What had changed?

_We need the answer, _he admitted to himself as he sat back in his chair and watched Granger, whom he expected would provide it. _And I want that answer more than I want to maintain my former rivalries._

"I can do that," Harry said.

Even Granger looked surprised, Draco noted. He didn't much mind the way he looked bad right now for not anticipating what Harry would say, as long as she looked equally bad.

"What do you mean?" Granger demanded. "I know that you were used to handling Voldemort, Harry, but this isn't the same thing."

"It's simple," Harry said. "If there are lots of walking dead in Wiltshire, then Nihil will need to be nearby so that he can control them himself. I know that much about necromancy. And I know a spell that can—find out a necromancer."

Draco shot his hand out under the table and squeezed harshly down on Harry's wrist. He tried to say with his eyes, _What have I told you? Enough of this. You will not use any more necromancy._

But that was a complicated message to convey with one's eyes, and he supposed he couldn't blame Harry _entirely _for giving him one innocent look and then turning away to face Granger and Weasley. They looked as skeptical as Draco did, thank Merlin. Ventus only looked interested.

"It's not anything Dark," Harry said soothingly. "It doesn't use blood. It only uses an—impression of the enemy's mind. And I think I know Nihil as well as anyone does. I've been in close contact with him. I know that he calls himself not human. I know the way he thinks. He's not Voldemort, Hermione, but he is a little like him, crazed by all the magic he's used. I can find him and at least make sure that we're facing the real thing."

"That sounds perfect to me," Ventus said, complicating an already complicated situation further without even noticing.

Draco could feel his fingers turning white with strain where he held Harry's wrist. Harry must have a remarkably high pain threshold, because he didn't wince or otherwise act as if he minded. He turned to Weasley and Granger and waited for their approval.

It was long and slow in coming. They knew, like Draco did, where Harry must have learned the spell, and what he meant by "an impression of the enemy's mind." The more proper word would be _affinity_. Harry thought he could draw Nihil in because both of them had used necromancy. But using the spell, if it really was a spell and not a ritual—if this wasn't another excuse for Harry to use a kind of magic he was addicted to—would more than likely reveal to Nihil the existence of that affinity.

Desperately, Draco beat his mind about, trying to think of things he could do, plans he could come up with, that would make sure the person behind the glamour who might come to them was Nihil. He could think of nothing.

Granger, her mouth pinched, said, "You're _sure _this isn't a Dark spell, Harry?"

"Sure." Harry smiled at her. "I'll explain all about it to you if you like, give you the name and everything, so you can look it up for yourself."

Granger's face relaxed. She liked to be in control of the information they used, Draco thought bitterly, and that meant this was all it would take to convince her.

Weasley ran his fingers over the table as if stroking a reluctant virgin-flower into releasing its secrets. "This spell won't hurt you, mate?"

Harry shook his head. "Ask Hermione if it will, when she's looked it up and knows all about it."

Enough flattery and reassurance for the Weasel as well as Granger in that sentence, Draco thought bitterly. Weasley relaxed, too, and nodded his blessing.

Harry turned to Draco for his. Part of Draco was relieved that his approval was at least seen to be necessary; the rest of him was enraged that Harry had waited until the end to ask the person his actions most affected. He stood up hard enough that his chair toppled over backwards and said stonily, "Come with me, will you, Harry?"

Harry rose to his feet and followed him meekly from the room, but Draco wasn't fooled. When Harry had that particular set to his jaw, he meant to argue.

Well, it wasn't as if Draco was going to let him win this one.

*

Harry faced Draco, trying to control his nervousness. Draco had shut the door and cast privacy spells around this section of the corridor strong enough that Harry felt as if he were hearing all the sounds around them through muffling walls. And Draco's eyes were on fire, and his chin thrust out as if he intended to batter Harry unconscious.

Well, he had a right to feel that way. And Harry didn't know if he could convince Draco that the spell he had found in the necromancy book was really harmless. It was a spell to detect necromancers, one that only someone who had practiced the art themselves could use. Harry suspected that was the reason Portillo Lopez and her little group of assassins hadn't used it before now to find and eliminate people like him.

But this was the only solution Harry could think of, and he wanted to do _something_. Ventus and Hermione and Ron had planned most of what they'd thought of so far. Draco had given the orders. Harry was the only one who drifted around and didn't make a positive contribution. Hermione might say that he was entitled to rest after the war with Voldemort and let others fight the battles, but Harry didn't think that way. He _had _to help.

Draco twisted his head to the side and said, "Explain why I should trust you with necromancy for one minute."

"I'll tell you the name of the spell, too," Harry said quietly. "It's not necromancy. It's an affinity spell." Draco's face only tightened, and Harry shook his head. "It's not Dark magic, either. It's harmless. What I did was stupid, but let some good come out of it, yeah?"

"I don't want you to do it," Draco said.

"Can you come up with a better way to detect Nihil?" Harry made himself ask that question in a calm voice. It was possible Draco had thought of a solution. Harry would hate that in a way, because it would mean that he was, once again, useless, but he had to ask.

"That's not the _point_," Draco said, glaring at him.

Harry blinked. "But of course it is. We wouldn't be having this conversation at all if not for that."

Draco bit his lip savagely enough that a little trickle of blood ran down his chin. "I can never trust you again if you do this," he said.

Harry narrowed his eyes. "And why should I have trusted in your plan to write a letter to Lucius? It's actually mad, and there are other things we could have thought of. You don't _know _that he'll do as you ask. What if he sends you a letter with a trap in it? What if the glamour vanishes if you break your word? There's no way that you can know in advance how that plan will work out, Draco. But you're using it because you think it's likely to work, and the risk is less than we'll have any other way. I'm doing the same thing."

Draco was breathing fast and hard; Harry didn't think he could remember him doing that before, even after they'd been training together. "No necromancy," he said.

"_This isn't necromancy_," Harry said, and wondered how many times he would need to repeat that before Draco understood. He knew Draco wasn't stupid, but he appeared to have decided that there was no way Harry could use magic that he didn't understand. "Like I said, you can research the spell."

"What is it called?" Draco's breathing was a little calmer now, his face losing some of its hectic flush. Harry relaxed. He had a chance to persuade Draco around to his side, maybe.

"The Mortal Affinity Spell," Harry said. "I think it was originally meant to let necromancers find each other when they'd been separated in battle." Draco glared at him in a way that made Harry feel stabbed, and he decided to leave out anything else he'd learned about the origins of the spell and hurry on. "Anyway, the incantation is long but the wand movements are simple. I thought I could use it near the start of the battle, when we don't have much to do yet, and make sure Nihil really is there before we risk ourselves."

Draco was silent. Harry watched him staring into the distance and wished he had more nervous mannerisms, the way that Hermione would twist a curl of hair around her finger or Ron would crack his knuckles. He had learned to read Draco fairly well, but not _that _well, and he could always use more practice.

"I'll research it," Draco said, voice heavy as a slap. "You're not to use it until I do."

"Why would I want to?" Harry asked, practically dizzy in his relief. "There's no reason for me to use it here." _Unless I wanted to find out whether there are any other necromancers among the trainees, _he thought a moment later, but he was smart enough not to voice that.

Draco nodded, eyes still fastened on Harry as if he assumed he would run off and draw a blood circle the instant his back was turned. Harry understood the distrust. Draco really had no proof that he _wouldn't _do that, not yet.

_But I don't have proof that his plea to his father will work out, _Harry thought, as Draco dispelled the privacy ward and opened the door that would take them back to their friends, _and I trusted him anyway. At some point, as long as I can prove that I don't want to do anything stupid _and _actually refrain from doing it, he'll need to trust me again._

*

Draco leaned back in his chair and shut his eyes. He had studied the book in front of him for so long that shutting his eyes made no difference; the words were still there for him to react to, brilliant as comets.

_The Mortal Affinity spell is meant to help locate practitioners of the Dark Arts, and used mostly by Dark wizards who have turned to the side of the Ministry. It works best when the Dark Art practiced is of the same type, and its use was controversial during the term of Minister Regulus Smythe-Jones (1901-1906) because certain wizards who had cast the Unforgivables were spared Azkaban to track down others of their kind. The incantation involves several words, making it unusual among tracking spells, but the wand motion is a simple cross tracing in the air at the level of the caster's heart._

So far, so good, Draco had to admit, if grudgingly. Harry had told the truth. This wasn't a necromantic spell, and it had no trace of a ritual about or behind it. No blood required. And as long as Harry had gone through the Dark Arts, as stupid as his behavior had been, they might as well make use of it.

But Draco still didn't like it. He didn't want Harry to spend time thinking about what he'd done or if any good could come out of it; it would be much better if he could forget it completely and devote himself to Draco and their compatible magic. Only the fact that Draco knew that was impossible let him consider this dispassionately.

_The spell will reveal to the caster, by means of a black aura that only he or she can see, the presence of anyone within a mile who has cast similar Dark magic. Note that the greater the similarity, the greater the effect; casting a legal spell that merely resembles the Imperius Curse will not make someone glow as brightly as those who have actually used the Unforgivable. Likewise, habitual use makes them easier to spot. Users of the Mortal Affinity have reported that those who cast the Imperius Curse even three times only were up to ten times brighter than those who had cast it only once._

Draco snorted bitterly. There ought to be no problem with that. Harry had used necromancy at least three times that he'd admitted, and for Nihil, it must be considerably more. If he passed through death to get to the other side, the way Granger had theorized and as seemed increasingly likely, even that might count as necromancy.

_The Mortal Affinity spell has its dangers, but they relate mostly to the temporary blindness too bright an aura can induce. There is also a theory that casting it too many times can lead to an "exchange of souls and magic" between the caster and his subjects, but this is vague language from an old book and has never been proven._

"Of course he chooses the most dangerous one," Draco muttered, opening his eyes and looking at the book again. He knew it was the same one Granger had used when she did research on the spell, but he would bet he knew it better. "Of course."

He sat there for long moments, looking at the shelves, the table, and his own hands—anything to keep from considering the book itself and the decision it, and necessity, were driving him to.

They had to make sure that Nihil was actually on the battlefield, something that was impossible with the glamours, changes of face, and lightning-quick Apparitions their enemies could use—unless they used something like the Mortal Affinity spell. And Harry wanted to participate, and he was probably the member of their group who was the closest to Nihil in terms of what magic they had performed. Draco could use it, under the theory that he and Nihil had probably done similar Dark magic at one time or another, but that wasn't guaranteed to work. Harry's use of it was.

Draco still didn't like it.

_He's already made so many sacrifices._

_This might be what could draw him back into necromancy. If he starts thinking too much about the book he learned it from—_

_It's one thing for me to take a risk, when I'm certain my father won't kill me whatever happens, and quite another for Harry. Nihil could kill him. Necromancy could kill him. Losing me could kill him._

Draco sat still for so long that he heard every variation on those thoughts repeated two or three times, and came no nearer a solution. Finally he shook his head in utter irritation and stood up. He wasn't getting anything accomplished sitting here.

He strode back to Weasley's rooms and banged on the door. Harry opened it, blinking as if awakened from a nap.

"Yes," Draco snapped, "you can use it."

Harry nodded and gave him a small smile, seeming to understand that Draco couldn't appreciate loud enthusiasm right now, and then started to shut the door.

Draco held it open with one hand on it. If he gave Harry something, his thoughts ran, he should get something in return. "And move back in with me this instant," he said. "Having you here is ridiculous."

_This _time, when Harry whooped and gave him a sound kiss, Draco didn't so much mind it.


	28. Final Preparations

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Twenty-Eight—Final Preparations_

Harry was watching when the letter came. It helped that both he and Draco were eating in the dining hall, and neither Ron nor Hermione had appeared yet. Ventus had been there talking to them, but she had had an idea in the middle of the conversation and wandered off to investigate it.

The owl came soaring silently across the tables and landed right in front of Draco, on his plate, staring at him with unblinking eyes. Of course, all owls flew silently and all had unblinking eyes, but Harry thought those facts were more ominous than usual just now. He put down his own toast, untouched, and turned towards Draco, waiting for him to open the letter.

Draco's face was paler than usual, but he put down his fork and reached for the envelope as if he had no doubt about what was in it. Harry, meanwhile, drew his wand and began casting detection charms that should reveal the most basic curses and hexes. No one would think it was strange for him to do that, given how much caution the instructors had encouraged the trainees to have towards their post.

_I hate the way Nihil makes us live. _Harry scowled and tried to remember if he had lived like that during the war with Voldemort. Not really, but he had been younger then, and also more prone to believe that living cautiously wouldn't do much good when he and Voldemort were going to clash anyway.

Draco stuck his finger beneath the seal when Harry nodded that it was safe and pulled out a crisp, many-times-folded sheet of parchment. He spent a moment inhaling a fragile fragrance that rose from the page, which Harry couldn't identify. Harry tensed, just in case that fragrance was potion fumes that were meant to control Draco. Harry had learned, thanks to some history that Davidson had mentioned in Concealment and Disguise, that pure-bloods could turn practically _anything_ into a weapon.

Draco opened the letter and studied it. Harry wished he could do something other than sit there like a lump and smile hopefully, but he thought Draco would feel crowded if he leaned in over his shoulder and tried to read the letter right now.

"He'll do it."

So intense was the atmosphere around them as he waited for Draco to say something that Harry thought he had mistaken the words at first. He blinked and looked up. "He will?" he asked stupidly. _After we spent so much time worrying, he'll really do it? And he doesn't suspect anything?_

Draco nodded shortly and stood up. "But he wants to bargain," he murmured. "Another letter, and he wants control of the time and day when we meet. I have to write back quickly. No telling when he'll change his mind and decide that there's some trap here, or what he might send instead of the glamour." He dropped a kiss on Harry's forehead, seemingly oblivious of the avid eyes watching him. "Do you mind covering for me in classes today? Tell Morningstar that I've been feeling sick and won't be in."

Harry's chest tightened. He didn't like leaving Draco by himself while he wrote the letter. "Are you sure? If you waited to write it until this evening, I could be—"

"Urgency, remember?" Draco shook his head, eyes fastened on Harry now with what looked like a glimmer of disappointment in them, as if he thought Harry hadn't been listening properly when he spoke. "I _have _to do this, Harry. Please don't tell me that you're going to turn your back on me now."

"This has nothing to do with that!" Harry snapped. "But I don't like the thought of you bearing this burden by yourself."

Draco's face softened, and this time his kiss was on Harry's lips and more lingering. "I promise I'll be all right. Cover for me." He turned and ran for the door of the dining hall, one hand clapped over his mouth as if he were about to throw up. Harry had to admit that he did a convincing charade.

Harry closed his eyes. He had to admit that at that moment he felt as if he had a lot more to worry about than whether Morningstar believed him.

But Draco was depending on him, and Ron and Hermione were walking towards him with determined strides now and curious faces, so Harry would have to stop looking so faint. They didn't know that Draco's "powerful" friend was Lucius. Harry smiled, made his smile less shaky than he was sure the first one was, and stood to greet them.

*

_Dear Father:_

Draco stopped and considered the salutation. Was that too informal, or too formal? Would Lucius suspect that Draco was rushing into the bargain too quickly when he looked at the words?

Draco shut his eyes. The plain truth was, he didn't _know_. His father had written the kind of letter back that Draco had expected—sly, teasing, seeking to control their interaction—but Lucius might have known Draco would expect that and written exactly that kind of letter to provoke Draco's own expected response.

His heart danced in his chest. His throat tasted like dust, and at that moment, he heartily wished that he had accepted Harry's suggestion to go to class and write the letter later, when he could think about it more.

But he also doubted that the pressure of time would make the task easier.

In the end, Draco kept the salutation and wrote on past that.

_I wonder if you know what I felt when I saw your response? Incredible relief. Sadness that it must have come to this. Resentment, that you would presume I would not only surrender but let you dictate the terms of that surrender._

_But you are right. I have little choice. I need this glamour, and you are the one who can best construct it._

_I feel myself bound in cords, trying to be an Auror still, as well as a dutiful Malfoy son. Pray only remember that my duty to the family line will be best secured by dealing with me as an adult, and not by obligation and coercion._

Draco stopped for a moment and felt as though the pounding of his heart would make his throat shut.

Something brushed against his ankle, and he nearly screamed. When he looked down, though, he recognized Politesse, who was staring up at him with fierce concentration, teeth slightly bared and scorpion tail slightly vibrating.

Draco picked up the little dog and buried his face in the short, smooth fur. Politesse wriggled around so that he could watch over Draco's head into the corners of the room, looking for danger. His growl made him quiver, and Draco supposed he would have looked ridiculous to someone who didn't know what he could actually do.

"I'm sorry," Draco whispered. "I've been neglecting you." It was true. His life had lately been filled with the whirl of classes, which Politesse wasn't allowed to accompany him to, and his fights with Harry, which he'd kept Politesse away from because he might have attacked Harry. He had only played with or touched the small dog when he was in his rooms, which wasn't very often.

Politesse licked his face once and turned his head around to look at the door. Then he looked down at the letter, and his tail swayed forwards as if he thought he could get rid of the danger it represented by stinging it.

Draco gave a choked laugh and set Politesse on the table. "Nothing so simple, I'm afraid," he said. "I'd like it to be, and I'll let you know if you can do anything for me. But not right now."

Politesse gave him a single intelligent glance, then jumped off the table and curled up in Draco's lap. Draco touched his hair and listened to his heartbeat slow before he turned to finish the rest of the letter.

_I will try to become your son once more. And I agree to a meeting of your choice—if you send the glamour to me in your next message._

_Draco Malfoy._

There was nothing else that he could say.

*

"Harry, can I talk to you?"

Harry glanced up, surprised. He was in the library with Draco, and they'd been discussing their latest assignment from Lowell and Weston, which involved casting _through _each other's wands in combat, without exchanging them physically. Harry had enjoyed watching Draco's eyes light up with pleasure and the tight line of his mouth relax, and he hadn't thought about anything else in hours.

Now he winced and cast a quick glance at Draco, but Draco had already sat back in his seat and folded his arms. "Of course you need to go, Harry," he drawled. "Your duty is calling for you."

"Don't be like that, Malfoy," Hermione promptly snapped. "It's not such an imposition for me to want to talk to Harry when you've had him for most of the morning—"

"I don't see why it has to be a problem," Harry interrupted. "Why don't I stay here and you can talk to me?" He reached out and laid a steadying hand on Draco's arm. Draco took a deep breath, his eyes flashing shut and then open. He nodded brusquely to Harry a moment later, and Harry pulled back his hand. Draco wasn't going to admit to needing that much support in front of other people.

Hermione put her hands on her hips. "It's really important that this be a _private _conversation," she said, stressing the word while she looked at Draco as if she suspected him of not knowing what it meant.

Harry sighed. "Hermione—"

But Draco turned his back and resolutely gathered up their notes, so Harry reckoned he had no reason to linger. He got up and grumpily followed Hermione, all the same. He had just got Draco's mind off the letter to his father and the glamour, which Lucius hadn't yet sent. Now it would go back, and Harry would get minor grunts from Draco as answers to his talk for the rest of the day, if he was lucky.

"What do you want?" Harry asked, as they walked through the library aisles to a table near the back.

Hermione took a quick breath and gave him a hurt look. But she didn't say anything, instead sitting down at the table and pulling out a book so thick Harry was surprised to see it didn't have a title. When she opened it, though, he understood. It was one of Hermione's notebooks, and she had the habit of simply conjuring more paper inside one of them when she filled it up, instead of moving on to a new one and losing a potentially instant source of information.

Harry sat down across from her and prepared to be reluctantly interested.

"I've been reading a lot about the influence of Dark spells on one another, and the influence of Dark Arts practitioners on each other, since you told us about the Mortal Affinity spell," Hermione said, and then paused and looked at him expectantly, as if she thought that he would know what she was talking about.

"So?" Harry said.

Again the hurt look, but Harry squashed down the guilt. Occasionally, the guilt he felt about doing necromancy and hurting Draco was useful. It meant he could ignore the more minor wounds he inflicted on people.

"I was just wondering," Hermione said. "If there's any way that Malfoy…" She paused delicately. "We know he did Dark Arts in the past."

Harry didn't have to blink at her for very long before what she was proposing occurred to him. He shoved his chair back from the table with such violence that someone in another corner muttered at them. "You're suggesting he influenced me?" he demanded, voice low. "That _he's _the reason I made my stupid decision?"

"Doing that isn't like you, Harry!" Hermione stood up, eyes dark and passionate, reaching one hand out towards him as if she assumed she would need to restrain him from rampaging through the library. "Perhaps he didn't mean to do it, but some of the books said the influence can be subtle and unconscious—"

"Oh, _please_," Harry said, so contemptuous that Hermione flinched. "You just need some way to account for this that blames him."

"It's not like you," Hermione said again.

"It's _exactly _like me," Harry said, calming down now. He knew what she was saying, why she seemed to need to believe this, but the understanding still made him want to spit. "Exactly like my ridiculous guilt complex and the devotion I have to people I cared about and all the obsession I have with people I can't help. I might have started doing it on my own even if I was never an Auror or there was never a Nihil. I didn't consider anyone else when I made this decision. I jumped straight into it. And you should have seen Draco's face when he discovered what I was doing. He was shocked and disgusted, Hermione. He would never have done this himself. And that makes him a better person than I am, in some ways."

Hermione backed a step away from him. Harry could see the wavering uncertainty in her face that meant a new suspicion was dawning in her.

"You're not…" she said, and her voice trailed off, but that didn't matter, not when Harry knew the next words she would have spoken as if she had already voiced them to him.

"Not blameless? Not perfect?" Harry folded his arms and glared mockingly at her. "No, I'm not. I'm sorry if that upsets your notions about what kind of person I am, but all that means is that those notions were _wrong_. Draco didn't have anything to do with it. I did. It was all me. If I'd listened to him, or to the promptings of my conscience, and told him in the first place, then this could have been avoided."

Hermione turned away from him slowly, catching herself with one hand on the table as if she didn't see it. "I have to think," she whispered.

"Good luck with that," Harry said, and then turned and walked back towards Draco. His emotions were churning around his belly and throat and head, and he had no idea what else he could say. Hermione had not only dragged him away from Draco, she had done it for a _stupid _reason.

How could she blame Draco? Harry had thought she had forgiven him easily because their friendship was so old, and that she was stubborn and cold towards Draco because she believed that he had somehow encouraged the "Dark side" of Harry that yearned towards necromancy. But he had no idea that it was something like this.

_She didn't really forgive me, _Harry seethed to himself as he walked around a shelf that held a stack of large, dusty old books that didn't look as if they'd been moved in years, _she just made up a version of reality where it was Draco's fault, and then she found the "evidence" she needed to substantiate her theory and—_

Hands caught him. Harry looked up sharply, but his sense of Draco had told him who it was, and he relaxed before he could touch his wand.

He didn't resist when Draco bore him back into the bookcase and loomed close to him, looking at him with fierce eyes. Then Draco bent down, face hard with passion, and whispered, "I heard."

Harry eyed him. Draco didn't look as upset as Harry would have thought he'd be over Hermione's accusations. "Then you know—"

"I heard _all _of it," Draco interrupted, and forced Harry into a kiss that tasted of sweat and passion and left him gasping soundlessly after air before Draco pulled back. Draco had only retreated to get some air of his own, and he came back again in seconds.

This time, Harry met him mouth to mouth, and rejoiced in the way their tongues swirled around each other and their teeth clacked together, almost catching a hold of those elusive, darting tongues but never really managing.

Draco stepped back at last, one hand resting on Harry's chest and a small, mean smile touching the edges of his lips. Harry would never have assumed that he could find such an expression attractive—it was the way Draco had looked in Hogwarts, really—but all that smile did now was make him want to kiss it again. He waited, though, because he doubted Draco would have broken the snog they both wanted unless he had something important to say.

"I trust you more than I ever have right now," Draco said, voice charged with crackling electricity. "So don't fuck it up."

And he took Harry back to their table in the library for more studying.

Harry could hardly believe it at first. They had shared a kiss like _that_ and Draco wanted them to _study_?

But when Draco sat down, carefully arranged himself, and shot Harry a glance full of promise, Harry understood the theory, however much he disapproved of the practice. Draco wanted the smolder to build between them until it broke apart in a flame of new intensity. Probably he couldn't think of any other way to break the long drought of affection between them than to wait until they broke it because they couldn't stand it anymore.

Harry grinned back, sat down, and picked up his book, already imagining the moment when Draco wouldn't be able to wait any longer, and would seize him, and throw him against the wall, and—

He shifted, and Draco sniggered.

Perhaps there were some thoughts that weren't appropriate for a library.

*

Go in quickly, without thought. Thought would only slow him down.

Draco closed his eyes, counted to ten under his breath, and then opened them and started to move smoothly and naturally down the corridor, as if he had every right to be there.

Only one trainee passed him, and she kept her eyes on the book in her hands the entire way. Draco did tense, because though he wore a weak glamour—the only kind that wouldn't set off the wards the Ministry had enhanced since Nihil's attack last year—someone who looked up with enough suspicion might recognize him.

But she communed with her book, as blind as Granger to anything outside the pages, and Draco arrived unsuspected at the door of Pushkin's lab and lightly pushed it open.

Harry had wanted to come with him, but Draco had pointed out he knew Pushkin's labs better, having visited them several times when he was dissecting Nemo's beasts. And then Granger had pointed out that someone would suspect the truth if they both disappeared at the same time, and Harry would be better off appearing in public with "Draco" (a glamoured Weasley) on his arm in case the theft was discovered.

Draco had ground his teeth against Granger's implication that of course the theft _would _be discovered and against his temptation to protest—agreeing with Weasley—that no one who knew Draco would be fooled by his impersonation. Granger had snapped back that it was just a precaution and they should take care to be in front of people who didn't know them well, and in the end Weasley had meekly agreed.

_Just like he'd agree to everything his girlfriend told him, _Draco thought as he stood at the door of the lab and waited.

He had wagered his ability to come this far on his knowledge of Pushkin. Pushkin was the Observations instructor, and faithful to his subject—to a fault, in fact. He wouldn't want to set traps that someone could figure out their way around. Instead, he would capture a perfect picture of his lab, remember it, and then compare that picture to what he saw when he returned. Draco had to be careful to change nothing.

He whispered a small spell that most of the Ministry didn't know existed, and his feet rose a few inches off the floor. He swooped forwards in response to the impulse of a second spell, changing neither the faint covering of dust nor anything else that Pushkin might have left lying about.

The room where Pushkin had dissected the creatures had its door half-open. Draco paused, calmed his breathing and his impatience, and forced himself to see what was really there, as Pushkin had insistently taught them last year, rather than what he thought or wished to be there.

He smiled when he saw the glistening arc of a spiderweb extending from the edge of the door. Most other people would have cleaned that up, but Pushkin knew the value it held as an indicator. Draco cast a few sticking spells, carefully detaching the web from the wall and fastening it more strongly to the door, and made sure he memorized its original pattern before he moved the door.

Within the lab itself, there were other spiderwebs, and hairs, and patterns of condensation from cold mugs. Draco drifted through them. He couldn't know that he saw all the things Pushkin would, but he had got the best mark in his class that Pushkin had given in years. He was fairly sure that their minds worked the same way.

And there was the glass case that held the bit of bone Draco had instructed his father to copy. Draco grinned. Pushkin had bothered with a lock for this one, but he had never read the books in Malfoy Manor that Draco had.

Draco held out his wand and performed a complicated circling pass that it had taken him a month to learn. "_Resurget_," he breathed.

The magic seemed to rip itself out of his body; it took more power to cast this spell than most of the War Wizards' unsubtle efforts, Draco thought with justifiable pride. He couldn't imagine how much it must have taken to create the spell in the first place.

Once free, though, the force was gentler than a sunbeam. It reached out and stroked the lock. The lock fell to dust and ashes.

The glass case swung open.

Draco studied the specific molding of the white cushion inside it, and then reached down and enchanted the bit of bone to rise from it. The glamour that he took out of his pocket floated down and took the original bone's place.

No traps clanged; no wards sprang into life and shrilled to let Pushkin know what was happening here.

Then Draco gestured with his wand again, repeating the circling motion he had done earlier backwards.

And the lock returned, dust and ashes springing back into the original shape as if nothing had ever happened to it. The lock drifted forwards, and the glass lid came down to meet it. The case looked exactly as it had before it was disturbed.

Draco smiled. He'd like to see Pushkin try to figure out the Resurrection Spell, when he couldn't even suspect its existence.

He flew out of the lab, put the door half-ajar with the spiderweb in the right place, and ghosted back to the original door, where he spent some more time studying the floor and the doorway to make sure he'd missed nothing. When he was back in the corridor, feet where they belonged and the bone in his pocket, the smile faded from his face automatically.

He had promised his father to be in Wiltshire two days from now, at nine in the evening.

And he _would _be in Wiltshire on that day. Just rather earlier, and with a different purpose in mind.


	29. Darkly Burning

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Twenty-Nine—Darkly Burning_

Harry could feel the dead the moment they Apparated in.

They had landed in a curving sort of valley, with a small hill on one side of them and a bumpy meadow on the other, not that far from Malfoy Manor. Harry had carefully memorized the Apparition coordinates, even though he was letting Draco take him Side-Along, and the first thing he did when they landed was look around and make sure they were all in the right place, including Politesse and Flash. Draco was complaining to Hermione about her going first—he felt he should have been allowed to make sure that there were no traps "set by his ancestors," which probably included Lucius—and didn't notice when Harry stiffened and drew in a deep breath.

Because the second thing Harry did was feel as if he were bound to people who waited beyond the hills, bound by connections as delicate and as strong as floating cobwebs.

He clenched his teeth together and tried to avoid the curious gaze of Ventus, who had come separately and landed right behind them. She strolled forwards, head turning from side to side as if she were evaluating the valley's merits as a hiding place. Harry did his best to keep from whimpering.

The dead had a cold presence to them that made his back teeth ache, and that drew him like the taste of peppermint. God, how many must there _be _if he could feel them at such a distance? He was sure they weren't around the corner.

"We have arrived," Ventus said, her voice light and almost playful. She swung around to face them, and Harry did his best to conceal his reactions. The last thing he wanted was her demanding to know the reason for his expression so she could "incorporate it into the battle plans" like everything else she'd noticed in the past thirty-six hours. "Are you ready?"

Draco nodded and moved forwards, pushing hair away from the side of his face. Harry recognized it as a gesture he made only when he was nervous, but doubted the others would.

In his concern for Draco, he found the motive and the strength he needed to forget about the dead and necromancy for a little while. He touched Draco's shoulder, and Draco leaned into him without complaint.

"Ventus, you and Granger will set up the glamours," Draco said, his voice choked but gaining more power as he spoke. "Weasley, you stand ready with the potions the way that Granger showed you."

Harry caught Ron's eye and gave him an apologetic smile. Ron hadn't been any too thrilled with the idea that he wasn't to cast the glamours, which he didn't have enough skill at, or even fight at first, because of his lack of compatible magic, but simply stand around in the first part of the battle.

Ron nodded back, jaw clenched but expression more resigned than it had been, and started pulling the vials out of his pockets and checking to make sure that none of them had cracked. Harry opened his mouth, about to speak some cliché about how Ron had the most important task of all. Well, in a way, it was true. They wouldn't be able to complete Hermione's plan for reading Nihil's mind without those potions, and Harry knew that _he _wouldn't have had the patience to look at all of them for cracks.

Draco drew him away before he could talk to Ron, though, and spoke into his ear. Harry shivered at the tickling whisper, for many reasons. "Can you really do this? You know that you don't _have _to if you don't want to."

Harry touched Draco's cheek. Draco's face was pale and closed, but Harry thought he had learned enough about him by now for that not to matter. Draco still showed his emotions clearly enough in the grip he maintained on Harry's arm and the way he looked suspiciously around the little valley, as if every tiny clump of grass or heather hid an enemy.

"I wish there was an alternative," Harry said quietly. "I do. I'm not doing this just to make my part in the battle bigger."

"I never accused you of that," Draco snapped, his head jerking around as if he were glad to have an excuse for a row. "Did you think I was? Because I _wasn't_."

"I thought it might be something you were thinking," Harry said, and sighed at the stubborn look on Draco's face, pulling him forwards until he could encircle Draco with both arms. Draco stood stiff and unyielding in his embrace, but Harry had expected that and wasn't upset.

_Much_.

"I love you," Harry said. "I love you more than I love necromancy. I love you more than I love saving people."

"You haven't always showed that." Draco lowered his head and ran a finger up Harry's arm to his shoulder, refusing to meet his eyes.

Harry kissed his cheek. "I know. If there was a way I could make that up to you, other than what I've done so far, I'd do it in a heartbeat. But in the meantime…can you let me go ahead with this?"

Draco raised his shoulders and shifted them as if he were about to argue again that it was Harry's decision and not his. But then he looked up, and his eyes held that fierce blaze Harry had missed in them since yesterday, when Draco's exultation at retrieving the piece of bone from Pushkin's lab had finally worn off.

"If you get yourself killed because of this," Draco said in a voice like a frost snap, "I will _never _forgive you."

Harry kissed his forehead this time. "I know."

Draco's hands tightened convulsively on Harry's shoulders before he released him with a little push. "You have to do this, and I know you have to, and you know I hate it, and remaining here any longer won't change that," he said. "So go do it."

Harry gave him a sickly smile and turned away, to the north, in the direction that he thought the combined cold of the dead was coming from. He spent a few minutes waiting, to make sure that he had the incantation word-perfect in his head and to see if the cold would increase or change position. It didn't, and Harry decided that he was done with waiting.

He raised his wand and began to make the passes, while the incantation rolled through his lips in a tumble of Latin that he didn't bother listening to. Hermione had translated the words for him, but Harry had discovered that knowing the literal meaning meant he spent too much time worrying if it would work. The incantation's literal meaning was banal, seemingly not something so powerful that it would reveal the presence of Nihil to Harry.

But as he chanted, he felt the cold pressure on his skin increase, and the tension in his chest and throat redoubled, pressing down like enormous hands. Harry choked the last word of the incantation out, shivering.

The word seemed to take on form in the air before Harry and spun about, blazing with a violent silver light. Then the light turned inside out, and Harry saw the darkness behind it. He remembered, briefly, some words that Dearborn had used in one of his lectures last year. _The Dark Arts and the magic that is called Light can never be far from one another. The moment one vanishes, the other is there to take its place._

The darkness spread over the battlefield, a featureless void that didn't have even a star to lighten it. Harry shivered again and wrapped his arms around himself. He thought that he was the only one who saw the darkness, that the others weren't affected because they didn't know exactly what spell he had cast, but he couldn't take his eyes from that void long enough to check.

The void paused for a moment at the edges of the valley, as if it wondered where it should go next, and shot straight up. Harry craned his neck back, wondering if Nihil was above them. Had he discovered the secret of how to fly, too, like Voldemort that last year?

But the void soared over the hill, and the next moment, Harry couldn't see anything at all, blinded by a blaze of dark light that cut over the hill and reached back to him, undimmed by the solid object between him and Nihil.

Riding on the darkness came a voice.

_So there is someone here who knew me by my other name? How delightful. Come to me, little necromancer, and I will show you the face you know—if I can find it in my collection of masks._

*

Harry stiffened and screamed.

Draco spun around, feeling Politesse brush his legs and growl. Flash was flying around Harry's head, crooning and reaching down to run his claws through Harry's hair, as if that would make a difference.

It didn't. Harry's lips parted, and he uttered another cry. This one was hoarse and made it sound as if he were gazing into an abyss that he would tumble down into, forever.

Ventus aimed her wand and muttered something. Draco knew it must be a Silencing Charm when Harry's cries stopped, although the way his throat trembled showed that he was giving another one. Draco glared at her, and she shook her head admonishingly at him in response. "He was giving away our position," she said. "There's no way that we can deal with Nihil's followers if they dash in upon us now."

"What if he needs help?" Draco asked, teeth gritted as he moved forwards and put his arms comfortingly around Harry's waist. It was only too obvious, with how stiff he was standing, that Harry neither saw nor felt him.

"Then you'd better figure out how to do it," Ventus said, and turned to study the place they expected would become their battlefield, totally ignoring the way Weasley and Granger both flocked around Draco, the rattling of Politesse's tail, and the worried hissing of Flash.

_I thought that having someone so devoted to battle on our side would be an advantage, _Draco thought, glaring at her back. _I don't know if that's such a good idea now._

But he put his anger at Ventus, and his irritation at Weasley's whinging and the way Granger was _already _trying to cast a spell, from his mind. The important thing was Harry right now, not what Draco would have liked to have happen. Draco had to discover what he was suffering and how to snap him out of it.

"Harry," he said quietly, and rested his palm on Harry's cheek. "Can you hear me? Blink, if you can't speak. I don't want you lost forever. I love you," he added, and heard Weasley gag.

But Weasley wasn't important, wouldn't ever be important, next to Harry.

Draco fixed his eyes on Harry's face and kept calling, trying to keep the fear out of his voice. He _would _conquer this and get his Harry back. And regret that he had let Harry cast the spell at all was only another distraction that he couldn't afford.

*

Harry drowned in a maelstrom of sickly yellow light, the color of the glamour that Nihil had worn over his face when Harry saw him. All around him was laughter, and pain like icicles stabbing under his ribs, and swimming faces. Harry didn't know them, but the mere thought that Nihil could be so many different people, that they were up against someone who really could change identities like he could change clothes, made him want to vomit.

The other part of the pain was the darkness that churned behind the golden light, the chill that he understood more deeply than he could have expressed, and which was much stronger than the magical cold Nihil was using to attack him.

He had known that Nihil was a necromancer. He had known that he must have been at it for years to have raised this many dead, and to have grown so good at controlling them.

But he had not known what that _meant_.

Nihil walked in a shadow-world, bound to but distinct from the world where Harry and Draco and his friends lived, passing in and out of it like an evening wind. It was nothing to him to shake spirits free from their sleep and attach them to rotting bodies, or bodies that he had enchanted to return to a semblance of life. He was as much at home in that dark sea Harry had glimpsed when he saw the spirits of Remus, Sirius, Fred and Tonks as Harry was in the Auror trainee barracks. He did not mind if someone killed him or discovered the truth about one of his identities, because he would pass through death and come out on the other side, transformed and with a new body waiting for him. He was vast, and contained multitudes. He was more than powerful. He was unstoppable.

So Harry became convinced, and he reeled from the knowledge, and Nihil laughed at him, free and merry, and crammed more knowledge into his head.

_Is there anything you do not understand, Potter? Would you join me in this darkness? I can feel the yearning in you, you know, and once it has seized a soul, it never lets go. You will be master of the dead if I wish you to be. I have only to call to the taint in you, and it will spread and consume your good intentions._

That was the thing that made Harry want to thrash and scream with denial: the fear that someone could corrupt him and make him into a Dark wizard against his will. At least if he had practiced necromancy long enough to fall for its temptations, it would have been his own fault, his own stupidity. But just as the piece of Voldemort's soul in him might have been able to influence his actions without Harry knowing it, so Nihil could take and twist him and make him long for the art he had promised Draco he would never practice again.

_I could make you kill and enslave him, that _Death Eater _that you love. _A flash of freezing cold seared Harry's mind—Nihil's hatred for Death Eaters. _I could make you sleep with him in his new body, and you would not know the difference._

And finally, finally, those words roused a roaring fire in Harry that answered the cold.

He would never hurt Draco again if he could help it. He would not abandon him. He would not turn against him.

And he _would not _practice necromancy.

Harry lashed out, flinging his hatred against Nihil, withering the tendrils of doubt that reached for him, cutting through the darkness, turning the flashing yellow light to the sickly green light he knew and understood well: the radiance of Avada Kedavra. He had lived with that memory for years, of the spell cutting his mother down. He forced Nihil to live with it, too, and of the vision of Voldemort dying that Harry had carried with him ever since the Battle of Hogwarts.

Nihil hissed, writhing, trying to escape. Harry understood something else as he poured his fire on the bastard's head. Nihil hated to be pinned down to a single emotion, a single form. After spending so long changing whenever and whatever he liked, it was anathema.

Harry crushed him into a corner of his mind, denying him his freedom and his right to move. Nihil went berserk and began fighting free.

And while he did, Harry plunged into the cold sea that Nihil had been trying to drown him in.

He _understood _that sea now. Nihil had made him understand it without Harry's permission, and he had hated it, but along with its temptation, he knew its limits, and what it could and could not do, or be made to do. He would wield it as a weapon against Nihil if he could. He would use it to destroy him.

Now, he sliced through it and down, in search of any knowledge Nihil would not want him to have, anything that he could convert into a more permanent weapon.

Nihil was flying up behind him, or below him, or in some other direction or dimension where he couldn't do a lot of harm. Harry ignored him, because he had sensed a barrier ahead, of the kind that Snape had used to hide knowledge in his mind from Harry's tentative Legilimency. He laughed in his heart and cut through it with a single sharp nudge of his magic.

The knowledge spilled out like the quivering liquid of Pensieve memories and drenched him.

Harry was in a dark place. A place of endless pain, a place where he had decided that he would rather die than suffer anymore. He couldn't make the decision, though, because he didn't have a wand, and he wasn't a master of wandless magic, and there was nothing he could do or say that would make the Death Eaters kill him. He hurt _so much_.

A light in the darkness. A face like his own, stooping over him. A hand on his forehead, and a soft voice swearing vengeance.

Then pounding footsteps, and the Death Eaters were all around them, shouting curses, and he strained against his chains hysterically, because he didn't know what he would do if he lost his one chance of rescue now.

The man with the face like his didn't point his wand at the opposition, as he had thought he might. He laid one hand on his forehead, instead, and began softly to chant. He recognized his brother's intentions and pushed violently, upsetting his wand.

"No!" he shouted, while his brother's lips parted and he stared at him in shock. "I don't want you to sacrifice yourself just so that I can live! Do you think I would _want _to live after all they've done to me, if you killed yourself to save me?"

His brother started to reply.

A curse stung them, and he screamed aloud, because he recognized it as the beginning of torture, and now he would have to watch his brother _share _the torture, and there was nothing he could do, as much as he wanted to, he would have to lie here and suffer, and—

The unreleased magic his brother had been chanting circled around them, and tightened like an iron band.

And at the same moment, his own wish welled up in his mind, violently: _I want to do something to save us! I want to do something to escape!_

The magic hung in the air like a second, breathing presence, and then collided, curse and sacrificial spell and wish altogether. There was a roar louder and deeper than fire, coming as if from within a dragon's chest.

The magic _rolled _them, out of the world and into another behind it.

Hands clasped hands. Minds melted and flowed and reformed. There was a dark pool they swam through, but they resurfaced so neatly on the other side of it that he didn't have time to be afraid. There was a soft sucking sound, as muscles blended and spirits trembled and knew each other and nature transformed.

Then it was gone, and he was rising to his feet, and there were still Death Eaters in front of him, but he didn't have to be afraid of them, now. He lived their name in a way that none of them actually could.

He met their eyes, and stepped forwards.

They scattered from his path, squealing like the pigs they were. He smiled, and the smile hurt his face. He didn't know yet what he would see if he glanced into a mirror. Perhaps nothing that anyone else would recognize, perhaps nothing sane.

But he had changed, and the dark coldness that was part of him lapped and ran around his ankles and legs. He had passed through death and come out the other side.

He was no longer Caradoc Dearborn, or Daffyd Dearborn, but a mixture of both.

And _he _was Harry, seeing and feeling himself as a separate person again, who tore himself free and fled madly for the surface of Nihil's magic, with that being's angry cries still echoing behind him.

*

Harry opened his eyes and gasped as if he had been underwater and needed fresh air to enter his lungs at once. He reached up and clutched at Draco with a trembling hand, then turned his head. There was triumphant light in his eyes, but also a trace of red. It took Draco a moment to realize that was nothing more than a blood vessel bursting and dumping blood across his pupil. He hissed and tightened his grasp on Harry's hand.

"I know who Nihil is," Harry said. "A blending of Caradoc and Daffyd Dearborn."

Draco stared at him. He wanted to say something, but in the face of Harry's information, it seemed as though every center in his brain had shut down except the ones that listened.

"He tried really hard to keep me from finding that out," Harry said, pushing a hand through his hair as though he wanted to clear it of cobwebs. "He had the information hidden behind a barrier that would have protected it most of the time. But I was too deep in his mind, and he kept drawing me deeper because he wanted to destroy me. That was how I saw what Caradoc suffered, and the way that Dearborn—the man we knew as Dearborn—went to save him. They _blended_, in the middle of a mixture of magic. There was Death Eater curses, and a spell that Dearborn was going to cast that would have let him take his brother's place or something, and a wish that they could both survive from Caradoc. And it blended them into one person and took them through death."

"I've heard about things like this," Granger's voice broke in, swift and high-pitched. "It's called wish magic. It means that you can change reality if you desire something enough. But you have to want it with all your heart, and you can never use your magic for anything else again."

"Caradoc didn't, did he?" Harry asked her quietly. "Because Caradoc stopped existing. The being that exists now has bits of both brothers, but he's not just one."

"Wait a minute," Draco said, leaning against Harry and trying to decide how he could be so glad to have him back again and yet so eager to hear about something else. "Are you saying that the Dearborn we knew was Nihil?"

Harry glanced at him and nodded. "Yes. He could take on the body of Daffyd Dearborn, but he wasn't him, not anymore. He hadn't been since the first war, when he went looking for his brother."

Draco simply stared, not knowing how to respond. "Then his death—"

"Was no real death," Harry said. "But I think his Dearborn identity was getting inconvenient for him, and he knew that he had made mistakes in making attacks in the Ministry. He needed a way to get rid of it. If he simply vanished, people would have looked for him, so he faked his death." He added softly, "And we were stupid, because we thought someone had to be breaking through the wards into the trainee barracks, or coming from inside them. We never considered that someone could get through them just by crossing over from the Ministry, if he had clearance high enough—if he was an Auror."

Draco shook his head, trying to reconcile the calm, intense man who had mentored him with the creature Harry had said he had been.

"And I don't think we'll need the glamours," Harry said. He turned around, Flash sitting on his shoulder with his tail wrapped around his neck, and smiled grimly at Draco. "He has to know that I found out, and that I'd tell you. He's coming."


	30. The King in Yellow

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Thirty—The King in Yellow_

Draco clenched his fists. He wanted to strike out at someone, but that would accomplish nothing when they needed everyone here to fight Nihil.

Besides, Ventus was watching him with bright eyes and utter confidence, and Harry had despair in his half-smile. Draco couldn't let Ventus down; he couldn't show Harry that Nihil was all-powerful and they were going to succumb. But he had no idea, at the moment, what he could do.

Desperation sometimes worked miracles, Draco knew. It worked one now. Bits and pieces slid together in his mind, and then he had a new plan, assembled from a few shards of their old ideas, fastened with new glue.

He turned to Weasley. "Do you still have the hiding places that you mapped out memorized?" he asked him.

Weasley blinked at him, then jerked his head up and down. It wasn't a nod, not completely, but Draco decided that beggars couldn't be choosers.

"We're going to make the glamours," Draco said. The words thrummed and rolled around his mouth as he spoke them, making him _feel _how right they were. "But we're going to use them for a different purpose this time. Instead of attracting Nihil, we'll confuse him about how many of us are actually on the battlefield." He nodded to Weasley and Granger. "You hide and wait for my signal. When it comes, start casting the glamours while Harry, Ventus, and I attack."

"What's your signal?" Granger asked, eyes narrowed as if she needed all her brain to make sense of Draco's plan.

"It'll be unmistakable," Draco said dryly. "Trust me," he added, when she sent him a little frown. He took some pleasure in knowing that that was exactly what she had trouble doing.

"What kind of glamours are we going to use?" Weasley demanded. "I can't do the glamours of the beasts, you know that."

"Can you do the kind of fears that you had lying in bed at night when you were a child?" Draco asked softly. "The floating bits of darkness that might turn into a monster at any moment, the cold that came along with them?"

Weasley caught his breath and nodded. "But I don't understand," he said. "What—I mean, I don't think Nihil is afraid of those anymore."

"We're going to convince him that we have an army of the living dead," Draco said. "A different kind of dead than he commands. We're going to confuse him and confront him with his worst fear: that someone can fight him because they've discovered exactly the kind of tactics that he uses. Do your best with the darkness, and in the meantime, we'll do other things that convince him those glamours _are _the dead."

Weasley and Granger stared at him in silence. Ventus nodded thoughtfully. "I can see where the plan comes from," she said, "even if I am not convinced that it will work. But no one goes into battle knowing if their plan will work, not exactly." She gave Draco a smile that would have done credit to a cat licking cream from its whiskers. "I'll do whatever you need me to do, including adding to the glamours."

Draco nodded, but most of his attention was on Harry, who had the most knowledge of necromancy of anyone on the battlefield—well, anyone who was on their side. So much of this deception depended on him.

_Perhaps too much. _Draco dreaded to see Harry look up at him with betrayal in his eyes.

Harry took a whistling breath and reached up to run his fingers along Flash's spine. He was shivering continually, and looked ill. Then he turned and glanced over the hill again, the way he had been facing when he cast the spell. He was shuddering now. Draco wondered if the frost that he knew had spread along the walls during that one necromantic ritual Harry had conducted was touching him now.

_I'm sorry, Harry, _Draco thought, even as a smaller, meaner part of him thought that Harry was probably glad to have an excuse to touch this Dark magic again. _But Nihil knows that you know some of this. You're the only one who could believably command our "living dead."_

"Yeah, all right," Harry said. He turned and glanced sideways at Draco. "I was going to ask why we didn't simply Apparate back to the barracks, but—"

Draco nodded silently. Harry hadn't finished telling his story about Nihil when silent magic had washed over the battlefield. Draco didn't test it until after Harry stopped talking, but he had recognized it immediately. Anti-Apparition wards. Nihil was taking no chances on their escaping.

Besides, to flee now wasn't to escape. Nihil knew Harry was here, and he would be able to guess who had been with him. And as Dearborn, he had known most of them, perhaps all.

_Dearborn. _That was still hard to deal with.

Draco shook the thoughts away. There were certain things that he couldn't think about right now if he wanted to remain sane, or focused enough on the battle to be of help to Harry and the others. "All right," he said. "Weasley, Granger. Hide and cast your glamours." He turned to Harry. "Set up a fake necromantic ritual, or a real one. I think Nihil's paranoid enough that he might decide you have knowledge he doesn't. You have to make it look as though you're commanding the glamours."

"Ah," Ventus said cheerfully. "So that's the reason they all go silent around you and glare at each other as if they're blaming one another for a hidden problem, Potter. You practice necromancy. Don't worry, your secret's safe with me."

Draco groaned, but there had been no way to hide it from her without going through contortions that would take more time than they could afford right now. He turned to Ventus. "Not a word," he said. "You and I are going to be launching attacks on Nihil's army of the living dead, and I want to see what you can do."

There was no contest, he knew in a minute, not from the way Ventus's eyes brightened and she stood up as though someone had replaced her spine with a poker. She nodded to Draco. There was more color in her face than he had ever seen before, and she spun her wand with a lazy grace that made Draco think suddenly of Dearborn, of Dearborn as Draco had known him before—this.

"You won't regret allying with me," she said.

The words made Draco more confident than he liked to admit.

*

Harry stood on top of the hill which he had cast the spell over, a circle of blood at his feet, and watched Nihil come.

He had been curious at first about why Nihil hadn't simply attacked the minute Harry left his mind. It would have been his best chance of crushing them, while Harry still reeled from what he had learned and the others were more worried about him than attacks from the outside. But when Harry saw what flowed across the small valley, he understood.

Nihil had wanted to make sure that there was absolutely no chance that Harry or any of his friends would escape, and that meant preparing his largest set of forces.

The dead marched in neat ranks, all of them looking like living people except the ones at the very back, which Harry thought Nihil might have just animated. They were more ghostly, or else they were shambling corpses. Not that it mattered, Harry knew. As long as there was something of them left, they would fight to obey Nihil's will and destroy whatever he commanded them to destroy.

Harry understood necromancy more than he liked to admit.

He took a deep breath and stared at the ring of blood by his feet. Draco had insisted on cutting his own palm before he and Ventus ran off into battle position, seeming to think that the necromancy wouldn't be as bad if the ritual didn't use Harry's blood. Harry, of course, felt no connection to this as he had to the rituals that he conducted on his own.

Or he thought he didn't. There _was _a very faint dark vibration in the back of his mind that he was trying to ignore.

He looked up again and scanned the marching ranks. He couldn't see a sign of Nihil among them, but he knew that the bastard wouldn't be far. For one thing, his strength would be needed for an attacking force of this size; it wouldn't work if he was further away. He had never been that distant from the attackers he sent into the Ministry.

For another, Nihil would want to see them die with his own eyes.

So Harry held up his hand as he saw the first blurs of cold darkness drifting onto the battlefield from Ron and Hermione's glamours, and made a wide gesture that someone from a distance could mistake as the wave of a knife, and brought his foot down in the center of the circle of the blood. He would have liked to say that he felt Nihil's eyes on him and felt them widen, but that sensation was like the dark shimmer in the back of his mind: something he shouldn't pay attention to. It wasn't reliable.

He knew Nihil would probably sense the deception if he spoke in Latin or English. But he had another option.

He closed his eyes, envisioning a snake, and hissed harshly in Parseltongue. The wind around him seemed to grow colder, and when he opened his eyes, it was to see the entire dead army pause in mid-step, their legs all lifted and held motionless. They were staring up at him.

At the same time, several of the small black blurs that Hermione and Ron had conjured suddenly blended together. Harry stared. Had something happened to them? Or was this a part of the plan that Draco had refined after Harry had separated from the others?

The blurs lost definition as they crowded into one shape: that of a giant snake. Its head lifted, its tongue flickered out, and it appeared to taste the air in front of the crowd of dead soldiers. Then it turned its head, eyes seeking Harry out.

_Command me, _it told him.

Harry swore shakily, then swallowed and continued. He didn't know what had happened, but he _did _know that they needed to continue the illusion, or there was the chance that Nihil would figure out what was happening and overwhelm them.

_Kill the dead ones, _he told the snake in Parseltongue. _Spare the living._

He wondered a moment later if he should have clarified the difference between the dead and living to the snake, but since it turned and slithered straight at the dead army, he reckoned it knew.

The snake's head darted out and over the man in the lead, who Harry would have thought was a perfectly ordinary wizard if he had passed him in the street. For a moment, Harry's vision dimmed, as though he was seeing the man through a cloud. Then the man's head exploded and his body collapsed to the ground, as if someone had sucked all the substance out of it.

The snake touched another dead wizard, and it happened again.

Harry got somewhat distracted, though, by the force of fiery angels that appeared in the air over the battlefield just then.

They were large figures, but undeniably human, made of flames, wielding swords and soaring down on beating wings. Their laughter was delicate and so high-pitched that Harry could barely hear it; it was a whisper of sound against the edges of his senses. The grass burned and boiled beneath their feet, and where their swords touched the dead, they spread burst after burst of searing white fire.

Another laugh, more human, joined theirs. Harry turned his head.

Ventus was running onto the battlefield, spinning sometimes in place to launch more curses at the dead, her head so bright with a reflected corona of power that she rivaled her angels in brilliance. Her curses cracked the ground beneath the dead and ate them in miniature earthquakes. They made the dead thin and fade to ghostly versions of their former selves that, as far as Harry could see when Ventus got near them, could touch and affect nothing. Ventus pointed her wand at one of the shambling corpses, and a swarm of flying giant maggots manifested above it, feasting hungrily on the dead flesh.

Draco was running into the valley from the other side, his voice triumphant as he shouted spell after spell. He produced spectacular effects, too, Harry was the first to admit: bodies that split in half, a tidal wave that drowned several of Nihil's people, mud that snared the legs of the dead and wouldn't let them move forwards. Politesse surged beside him, snapping and snarling and stinging.

But Harry understood what Ventus had meant now when she said that she cared about battle and nothing else. One would have to. You couldn't hold anything of yourself back if you wanted to cast spells like that. Dedication and nothing else fueled them, pure power and pure obsession.

It was beautiful. It was terrifying.

_Is that the kind of power Draco wants?_

Harry shivered and turned back to the battlefield, watching as the snake, Ventus, and Draco together devastated Nihil's force, and wondered if Ron and Hermione were about to come out of hiding.

Something far worse happened—something Harry ought to have anticipated, especially when they started doing far better in this battle than they had any right to expect, but which was still a shock.

Nihil came.

*

Draco panted and ducked the reaching arms of the dead, spinning around in a circle that meant his wand came down in a deadly arc. An invisible sword took the arms, and then another stabbed the corpse through the guts and put it out of its misery. It fell, and any appearance that made it similar to the living departed. Its face was slack, and it didn't bleed.

Draco wondered idly for a moment what death was like for the living dead, what happened that made destroying the corpses effective. Did that shake the spirits free of Nihil's control? Or was he animating bodies, some of them, and not really the spirits?

That was more than he wanted to know about necromancy, though. He turned and aimed his wand at the next enemy.

Then the battlefield washed with a sickly yellow light, and there was an immense, empty sound above Draco, like someone stretching his jaws in a yawn.

Draco looked up.

Something was visible in the air above him, something it hurt to look at. Draco wasn't sure that he ever saw its true form. His eyes rejected it violently, and trails of blood crept down the side of his face when he tried to look beyond that, to make himself see something else.

But the yellow light centered on it, and the hollow sound repeated. The unvisible thing began to descend.

Draco knew, with the same stark, primal terror that he would feel in the face of a charging nundu, that he did not want it to touch him.

He fell back, casting every curse he could think of at it, including some he had used in this fight and some he had never thought he would use against another living being. But then again, he didn't think this was a living being.

Every spell either vanished into the unvisible whirlwind or simply bounced off. Draco had to duck as his own Leg-Breaking Curse came back at him sharpish, and when he rolled upright again, he was closer to the thing than he liked.

He fell back again, and felt pressure and presence near his back. When he looked over his shoulder, Weasley and Granger were standing there. Weasley was bright red, Granger was pale, but they both had their wands pointed past Draco at the thing.

"What the fuck are you doing?" Draco hissed at them. "You could have stayed hidden, and there's the chance that it wouldn't have found you."

"I don't think Nihil's _that _stupid," Granger said. Her voice was remarkably steady, although the smile she gave him trembled and flickered out after a second only. "Besides. Do you think we'd leave you to face this alone?"

Draco closed his eyes and shook his head. He lacked the words to explain what he thought of Gryffindor courage.

"It's coming closer." Weasley spoke as though his stomach was coiled up in his throat, but his voice was calm. Draco had to admit that it was more than he could have handled at the moment.

"I know," Granger said, and Draco heard her fingers rap against her wand as though she was trying to figure something out. "But I don't know what to do to stop it," she admitted a moment later.

_So much for that hope, _Draco thought, and opened his eyes in time to see Ventus leap past him and stride towards the whirlwind as though she intended to arrest it.

"I know you," Ventus told the thing. Her head was cocked so she was looking at the thing sideways. Draco would be glad for that. He had seen enough to make him admit that Ventus wasn't an ordinary witch, but she would have been more than human if she could have looked directly and not flinched. "You are the surrender of death, giving in and giving up. You're the opposite of _fighting._"

The whirlwind didn't respond in any way. Draco wondered why he had thought it would have. It simply floated closer.

Ventus pointed her wand at it with a disdainful expression and said, "_Alternum regnum_!"

The whirlwind shuddered, and drifted to a stop for the first time since Draco had seen it appear in the sky. Then it began to move sideways, but more briskly than it had been before, and Draco didn't think it was going of its own free will. A vicious hissing emerged from it, and bits of the sides projected out, becoming easier to see, like flailing arms. Ventus laughed.

"What did you do?" Draco breathed. He was already thinking that he would need to take up lessons with Ventus when they got back to the Ministry. She had bragged about her skill, yes, and he had thought there might be something to that, but he had never imagined _this_.

"I'm moving it into an alternate world," Ventus said, as if that was an everyday occurrence. "Nihil won't have the same power in another world that he will here, because the circumstances of his existence—if he exists—will be different there. He'll have to deal with at least a little confusion, and in the meantime, we can come up with a permanent solution for defeating him."

Draco squeezed her shoulder, not sure how else he should react. "Thank you," he said.

Ventus gave him a look in which light and laughter blazed. "You never should have underestimated me," she murmured. "But I forgive you. You hadn't seen me fight. _That _is the key to understanding me."

A loud hissing noise in front of them attracted their attention. The whirlwind had stopped drifting, and once again it was hard to look at. And now it was accelerating towards them, in a way that told Draco all too clearly that Ventus's spell had failed.

Ventus, undaunted, stood there firing spells at it until Draco dragged her with them, but none of them had any effect. Whether Nihil knew how to fight them or had somehow constructed a defense that made him immune now, Draco didn't know, but it was obvious they were all going to die.

Politesse was barking and growling near his ankles, making little rushing motions forwards as if he would charge Nihil, but Draco kept him back. He didn't know what would happen if the dog got close enough, and he didn't want to lose him.

_Even if we're all going to die in a few minutes._

Then what had happened at the end of the war happened again, and Harry Potter saved them all.

*

Harry had shouted spell after spell when he saw Nihil come on the battlefield in the middle of that _thing_. Harry had no doubt this was Nihil, and not someone else. The sense of cold and darkness had intensified in the back of his mind when the thing appeared, and it seemed that the Mortal Affinity spell still lingered, because Harry saw the thing shining with a bright obsidian corona.

The sensible thing would have been to rush down the hill and join his friends and Draco so that at least they could die together.

But he couldn't move from the ring of blood. His feet literally wouldn't stir. Harry bent down and yanked at them, swearing, and still nothing helped. He looked up and around for the giant snake, wondering if the same magic that had made it was keeping him prisoner here, but he saw no sign of it anymore.

_What is going on?_

He closed his eyes and opened them, and when he looked again, he could see the black vibration in the back of his mind as if it had moved out into the world and come to life.

It flickered all around him, visible as enormous black chains that manacled his legs to the earth. More, chains stretched to his arms, his head, his shoulders. The magic stared at him, and Harry swallowed. Nihil had somehow turned the necromancy against him. It was keeping him prisoner here.

But the magic reached towards him, then retreated, with much the same speed that Flash, circling around his head, used.

Then Flash landed on his shoulder and crooned into his ear, closing his talon reassuringly near Harry's collarbone.

Harry licked his lips. Flash, at least, seemed to think everything was all right and he could still do something about this. Flash wasn't even lashing his tail as he looked towards the floating thing that contained Nihil, or growling the way he had when faced with Nemo's beasts. He seemed to show only a minor curiosity.

Words roared out of his memory, words that he had read in the necromancy book before Draco burned it.

_When a necromantic ritual has begun, it must be completed. There is no force known to wizards that can stop it save the shattering of the circle or the necromancer's own will not to continue. _

Harry opened his eyes and stared at the blood circle around him. He had been able to stop the ritual that Draco interrupted because he had honestly wanted to stop, he was so horrified and ashamed at the thought of Draco seeing him.

But this one…

"Oh, come _on!_" he said aloud. "This wasn't a real ritual! We just set this up so that I could pretend to control the glamours and Nihil would _think_ that I was doing necromancy!"

The black magic thrummed around him, refusing to be placated, and Harry remembered the snake. No, it shouldn't have happened, especially when the glamours were only illusions and not real living dead, but apparently the necromancy was _convinced _it was real.

Harry turned his gaze on the thing that contained Nihil. He didn't understand what it was, any more than he was capable or experienced in the theory of necromancy when compared to Nihil. But he remembered what had caused the snake to appear, and he had will and desire to empower himself. Maybe that, combined with the ring of blood, would be enough.

He lifted his hand and extended it towards Nihil. Flash flapped his wings and crooned encouragement.

Harry hissed again in Parseltongue. _Be gone, enemy! Vanish!_

The black magic leaped over the circle and rippled out over the battlefield. The edge of the tide hit the edge of the thing containing Nihil.

Harry felt the strangest sensation. It was as if he was ripping apart thick, heavy cloth with sharp fingernails. The cloth was reluctant to tear, and it was moldy and covered him with slime as he got rid of it, but it _did _tear. He had the power.

His power was not greater than Nihil's, but it was _different_. Perhaps it was necromancy conducted with Parseltongue fighting necromancy conducted with Latin. Perhaps it was Harry's strange little ritual fighting Nihil's well-prepared, usual rituals.

But whatever it was, the thing tore apart, and Harry caught a glimpse of a human-sized figure in the sickly yellow glamour before he vanished.

The yellow light went with him, and the battlefield flooded with the sun.

And a dark shimmer settled permanently into the back of Harry's mind.


	31. Stripped Bare

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Thirty-One—Stripped Bare_

"Harry."

Draco had wondered what would happen if he spoke to Harry at all, let alone in the brisk tone that had emerged from his mouth. Harry had stood still for the last several minutes, staring at his hands in a way that made him look lost.

But Draco was going to begin as he meant to go on. He wouldn't sound deferential or pitying because Harry had used necromancy. Nor would he ignore it. He knew that Harry hadn't had a choice, but it was still something that they would both have to deal with, not pretend hadn't happened.

Harry blinked and looked up at him. Then he swallowed. "Draco," he said, voice dull. "I can feel it in my head." He touched his temple and pressed down harshly with his fingers, rubbing back and forth.

Draco caught his breath. But he wouldn't allow himself to panic until he knew what he was panicking about, so he raised his eyebrows and asked, "What do you mean?"

"I can feel—" Harry closed his eyes and tilted his head back, but Draco thought he was only struggling to find words to describe what he felt, rather than struggling with some sensation that would make him seem mad. At least, Draco hoped so.

"I can feel the necromancy taking up residence in the back of my head," Harry said. "It's like I'm never going to be able to forget or ignore it, now that it's there." He shivered and opened his eyes. There was a look of such utter despair in them that Draco was taken aback until Harry looked at him and spoke the explanation. "I'm sorry. I should have found a different solution to the problem."

Draco relaxed, so much tension draining out of his body at once that he swayed. "It's all right," he whispered, moving forwards to enfold Harry in his arms. Harry leaned on him, and Draco kissed his forehead. _That was what I was most afraid of, _he thought. _That _Harry _would try to ignore this, that it would lead to him refusing to acknowledge what it had meant that he used necromancy. _"I know you had no choice, and I would rather that you use necromancy than that all of us die."

"I should have tried the compatible magic instead," Harry muttered, refusing to open his eyes, but there was a lightness in those words Draco knew he could counter.

"I didn't think of it, either," Draco said. "And we don't really know that it would have worked from so far away, and with the two of us using completely different disciplines of magic. Lowell and Weston haven't taught us that yet."

Harry nodded, his hair rustling against Draco's cheek. Then he turned and kissed him. Draco turned greedily to meet the kiss with his lips.

"So you're a necromancer. You could have told me that before."

Draco felt Harry jump, and used his reaction to that to conceal his own surprise. He turned around to find Ventus considering them from a few feet away, arms folded and head tilted as if she was trying to figure out the best way of dealing with this revelation. Granger and Weasley were beyond her, watching Harry with anxiety. Draco didn't think any of the anxiety was for him. Politesse brushed up against his ankles, growling, though Draco didn't know if it was because of Ventus's nearness or Granger and Weasley's attention.

"We didn't want to tell you for obvious reasons," Harry said, and his tone was bored now, as if the only one he wanted to show weakness in front of was Draco. Draco's arm tightened around Harry's waist, and he fought not to sigh with delight at the thought. "We thought you would go at once to the Auror instructors and report me."

Ventus blinked slowly, eyelashes lifting and falling with such deliberation Draco was sure it was on purpose. He didn't know what she wanted them to understand from the gesture, though, until she spoke. "I value every spell that can be used in battle. I told you that, and under Veritaserum, too. When are you going to believe me?"

Draco shook his head. "What you did today was—incredible." That was one way to describe it, and it left out other, more revealing things he might have said.

"Thank you." Ventus gave him such a dazzling smile that Draco reeled, and then turned her attention back to Harry. "I would never have betrayed you. You're a powerful addition to my comitatus, and my loyalty is to the five of us first, before the Aurors."

Harry looked as if he believed it, so Draco decided that he could act the same way, at least for now.

"What are we going to do?" Granger demanded, looking back and forth between Draco and Harry, at Ventus as if she would have some kind of answer, and then back into the valley. Draco looked with her. Bodies still littered the ground, though mostly in pieces. There was no way that they would be able to hide what had happened here.

"Oh, that's simple," Ventus said brightly, and lifted her wand. Draco had enough experience with what might come out of it now to flinch as she aimed downhill.

Ventus didn't actually make something come out of her wand, though. She merely traced it in a circle, all the while looking trustingly up into the sky, as if she thought that someone was waiting there for her command.

The sky twisted in response, and a spiral that was a healthier yellow than Nihil's sickly glamour came out of it. It descended into the valley so gently that Draco didn't realize it was made of fire until it touched the grass and the grass began to smolder. Smoke and sparks still didn't spring up, though, as the flames neatly, cleanly, quietly, consumed the bodies. Every severed hand and exploded organ seemed to attract the fire, and it leaped through the air without the necessity of more commands from Ventus.

In five minutes, the bodies were burned to less than ash, and the spiral rose back into the sky and vanished beyond the clouds.

Draco looked at Ventus in silence. She looked back at him peacefully, raising her eyebrows as if she didn't know what to make of his gaze but found it intriguing.

"There," she said. "Now no one has to know."

Draco shook his head and turned to Harry. "Are you ready to return to the Ministry? We should discuss what we're going to do once we're there, but I don't think remaining here will win us anything."

Harry nodded and started to open his mouth. Draco never knew if he wanted to offer another apology or a piece of advice.

There were three loud cracks in the valley, and three wizards appeared there. Draco moved forwards at once, but he could see that none of them were Nusquam or Nemo—or at least, not Nusquam and Nemo as he had last seen them. If they really could change identities and bodies any time they wanted, then he didn't know how they were going to identify them.

If they could be _Dearborn…_

But there were enemies in front of them to brood about instead of what the man who had mentored him really was, so Draco seized his wand and made sure that Harry was at his side. If they couldn't use their compatible magic in battle with Nihil, they would use it now, against opponents who looked less formidable.

The three wizards remained motionless, staring up at them, even when Weasley called out in a wavering voice for them to name themselves. Draco just barely kept from rolling his eyes and snorting. _Yes, I'm sure they find that threatening, Weasley. _They all wore black robes, and heavy hoods that draped around their faces. From what little Draco could see of their chins and necks, though, he didn't think they were wearing masks, which meant they probably weren't Death Eaters or people imitating them.

That told them nothing about what these wizards _were_, though.

No matter how closely Draco looked at them, he couldn't make out any symbols on their robes, or any distinguishing characteristics that would have let him know how they moved or fought. The three wizards turned their heads towards each other and seemed to confer, but no murmur of voices rose to the hill, either.

Then the one in the middle stepped forwards. The voice that called out was feminine, but Draco reminded himself that could be a trap as easily as anything else. Nihil and his tricks meant he was doubly reluctant now to trust to appearances. "Surrender the necromancer. We have no reason to detain the rest of you."

Ventus began to swing her wand through her fingers, her eyes brilliant. "Oh, good," she said. "A fight to defend one of our own. I _like _this."

"Be still," Draco snapped at her, because he thought she was more likely to listen to him than anyone else, and glanced at Harry. To his surprise, Harry's face was pale and tight, and he had his eyes fixed on the wizards beneath them as if he knew them. Draco leaned towards him. "Do you know what they want?"

*

_Portillo Lopez. I know her voice. And the rest of them must be her little group that hunts necromancers and the living dead. I should have known._

Harry was regretting now that he hadn't told Draco and the rest about her. True, the secret hadn't really occurred to him as one that he needed to share, but if it _had_, then he wouldn't be in this situation.

He placed a hand on Draco's shoulder and squeezed. "Let me talk to them," he whispered. When Draco opened his mouth to object, Harry smiled at him. He knew it wasn't as convincing as it could have been, from the way Draco's eyes narrowed if nothing else. "Please? Trust me?"

The words carried more charge than almost any others would have between them. Draco bobbed his head and moved out of the way, wordless. Harry could feel Draco's gaze burning on his back as he descended the hill, though. He knew Draco would require an explanation of him later, and that it had better be a good one.

_If there is a later. If Portillo Lopez and her friends don't just kill me on the spot._

Harry shook his head to get rid of the thoughts as he halted in front of the three wizards. They watched him with a tense eagerness he hadn't been able to see from as far away as the top of the hill. There was some sort of border around their hoods, too, a thin strip of dark green. Harry wondered if that was for the deadly nightshade that twined the spokes of their wheel tattoos, and then told himself not to worry about it as Portillo Lopez leaned in towards him.

"You were warned," she whispered. "You knew what would happen if you used necromancy. You cannot complain that we violated the rules."

Harry lifted his head and tried to pretend unconcern, but his stomach was vibrating with anxiety. Portillo Lopez's words gave him a bit of hope, though.

_They want to obey rules. They have some sort of standards. That means that I might be able to fool them if I can find a sort of exception to the rules. Of course, it would help if I knew what the rules were._

"Does that include any use of necromancy?" Harry asked, and was surprised to hear his voice was calm. But he figured that out in a moment. Compared with losing Draco, nothing Portillo Lopez and her group could do to him frightened him. And he didn't think he would lose Draco, even with the new secret he had to confess, as long as he could survive this. "Even one that stopped Nihil?"

"There is no way necromancy could stop Nihil," said one of the other two. He had a distinct voice, deep and croaking like a frog's, and Harry decided that he would probably knew him if they ever met again. "He understands it as no necromancer in the history of the world could."

Harry took a deep breath. "But I used necromancy controlled by Parseltongue and not Latin against him," he said. "And I know how Nihil came to be what he is. That's information I could offer to you, but there's no reason to do it if you're only going to kill me for doing something totally different from him, for different motives."

Portillo Lopez was still, and it seemed that her two colleagues stood even more quietly, poised and staring at him. There was a long moment when Harry could feel her tension and wondered if she would agree to eliminate him immediately rather than allow him to run free.

Then Portillo Lopez glanced over her shoulder and nodded. The other two wizards stepped back, and Portillo Lopez faced Harry and cast a ward that enclosed them in a shimmering line. Harry noticed that he couldn't hear any sounds from beyond it. It made sense that it would keep their words quiet, too.

"You could offer this information to us because it would be for the good of the world," Portillo Lopez said. "You have more practice than most in realizing that that is larger than a single life."

Harry shrugged. "And if I'm really the evil necromancer you think I am, that all necromancers become just by using this art, why would I do that? I wouldn't have any conscience left, would I?"

Portillo Lopez waited some more, as though someone was going to show up and offer her a way out of this difficulty. Harry looked back at the hill. Draco was leaning forwards as if that would let him hear what was happening. Hermione and Ron stood close together for company. Ventus was in front of the others, her smile visible from here.

"I would ask you to demonstrate this Parseltongue-based necromancy to me," Portillo Lopez said, "save that I would not encourage you to put yourself in danger even for the sake of new knowledge. But it is true that you do not smell as bad, spiritually, as you would if you had embroiled yourself in darkness willingly. Tell me the circumstances under which you used the spell, and what it did."

Harry hesitated. He had gambled that Portillo Lopez wouldn't punish him as badly as she otherwise might if he told the truth, but he hadn't thought about what the consequences might be for the others.

"You hesitate now," Portillo Lopez said. There was a little ripple down the side of her body. Harry was sure she was aiming her wand at him. "When I ask you to confess the truth, you pause. Can it be that you have no new information to offer? That this was merely a gambit to make sure that I would not execute you immediately?"

Harry snorted in spite of himself. "Well, of _course _it was that," he said. "But no, I'm worried about how you'll punish the others in your capacity as an Auror instructor."

Another period of silence, while Portillo Lopez seemed to commune with herself and Harry looked back at Draco. He had his arms folded now, and his gaze was remote and cold. Harry shuddered and hoped that he wouldn't have to go through the entire process of regaining Draco's trust again.

_If you do, then you do, _he reminded himself. _Anything is better than a permanent loss._

"When I am part of my Order," Portillo Lopez said, slowly, as if she was having difficulty finding the words in English, "then I am not an Auror instructor. My purpose on this battlefield is not to punish the ones who came with you. It is to determine if you should live, or if we should kill you now before you can inflict more damage on the world. So long as you do not reveal my identity to them, or the existence of my Order, I have no reason to try and get them removed from the Auror program, as it seems you fear."

"What am I going to tell them about this meeting if you let me walk away, then?" Harry asked, swallowing as he thought about keeping secrets from Draco. "If I don't reveal the existence of your Order, then they'll never believe me."

Portillo Lopez tilted her head, and Harry could envision the smile she was wearing under her hood. "Perhaps you should have considered such a difficulty before you became involved in an art so dangerous," she murmured.

Harry clenched his fists. "If I lose my friends, which will happen if I lie, then I'll be restless and miserable and lonely," he countered flatly. "They'll be reproaching me all the time and begging me to tell them the truth. They've done that before," he added, thinking about the times in Hogwarts when he had tried to keep secrets from Ron and Hermione. And Draco could do even worse to Harry, because he had a more powerful hold on a different part of Harry's heart. "That doesn't give me much incentive to keep your secrets."

Unexpectedly, Portillo Lopez chuckled. "I know now that you have not completely succumbed to the forces that you have stirred up in your own mind," she said, when Harry stared at her. "No necromancer possesses such a sense of humor. Those forces tend to consume such lightheartedness almost at once."

Harry shrugged with one shoulder and then stood waiting, tense, while Portillo Lopez divided her gaze between him and his friends.

"Tell them that we are another group fighting Nihil," Portillo Lopez said at last. "You can even say that we specifically fight necromancy. But I must not have my identity compromised. That you know is enough of a problem already, but I wish to avoid unnecessary killing and so have not done as some of my siblings recommended and silenced you." Harry shivered in spite of himself. "If you betray me, I will have no reason to keep their memories intact. And I can avoid killing while inflicting significant damage still. Remember that."

Harry nodded, and then began to explain. Portillo Lopez listened so intently that it felt as if she was drinking his words, but she did nothing other than occasionally nod. Harry still couldn't catch a glimpse of her face. He thought he might have felt slightly better if he could have.

"Ah," she said, when he was done. "So you yourself do not understand what happened. The snake that you conjured was not real?"

"It came from illusions," Harry said. "It flowed together on its own. The illusions were only meant to confuse and trick Nihil." He turned and stared at the part of the valley where the bodies had lain. "And I think it did confuse him in the end, but not for the right reasons."

Portillo Lopez nodded. "I will have to conduct research." She paused again, and Harry shifted his feet and looked over his shoulder. Draco's expression was cold and ready, his wand pointed at Portillo Lopez.

"I have never heard of wish magic so powerful that it could overtake death," Portillo Lopez said suddenly. "If it was common, we would have had reports coming in about people who had raised the dead without turning to the path of necromancy. Grief is a powerful motivator for wishes."

Harry shrugged irritably. "He could have been lying to me even then, I reckon. But I don't think he was. There was too much fear and anger in his mind, and then he flung a huge force at us right after that."

"I trust nothing where Nihil is concerned." Portillo Lopez swayed slightly on her feet when she finished speaking, and then turned and dropped the ward encircling them. She called something in Latin too quick for Harry to follow to the other wizards. One of them nodded and Apparated out. The other responded, but Portillo Lopez spoke a single, harsh word, and then he was gone, too.

Portillo Lopez glanced back at him. Harry shivered—maybe Voldemort had had the right idea about having his Death Eaters wear masks after all; it was creepy trading words with someone whose face you couldn't see—but forced himself to meet her hidden gaze steadily.

"For now, we will leave you alive," Portillo Lopez said. "You are not the kind of necromancer that we thought you were, and you have performed admirably against Nihil, as well as contributing information to us. But I would not continue to practice it, if I were you."

Harry tried to smile at her, and said nothing about the dark shimmer in the back of his mind.

"Be careful," Portillo Lopez said, and she was gone, jumping after the others before Harry could ask her a single question.

_I would at least have liked to know what they were doing here, and why they didn't show up earlier to help us against Nihil, _Harry thought resentfully as he trailed back up the hill.

*

Draco wasn't convinced by Harry's story about the other group fighting against Nihil, or the careful way in which he told it, with his eyes on the ground. But Granger and Weasley seemed to be, and Ventus had a habit of swallowing things whole if they didn't relate to fighting or make things more dangerous for her in a fight. In fact, she was already debating what they should do in their next battle with Nihil as they prepared to Apparate back to the Ministry.

Harry was standing off by himself with Flash's tail curled tightly around his neck, so Draco took the chance to catch his arm. "What secrets are you keeping from me?" he whispered.

Harry caught a whistling breath. Then he lowered his eyes as if he was ashamed of himself, the way he should be, and said, "It's not entirely my secret to keep. But I'll tell you once we're back in our rooms."

Draco growled and made sure that he had a tight hold on Politesse when he Apparated, as well as on Harry's arm. He wasn't going to give Harry the chance to lie to him or turn his back on him again, not when they had _both _fought so hard for their renewed relationship.

When they were in their rooms—they had walked through the corridors there in absolute silence—he dropped Harry's arm, turned to face him, and snapped, "Talk."

Harry grimaced and rubbed his forehead as though his scar was stabbing him. "That was Portillo Lopez," he admitted. "She's part of a secret order that fights necromancers. She had come to see if they needed to kill me."

Draco stared at him with his lips parted, his mind leaping to the strange mark they had observed on Portillo Lopez's skin at the end of last year. "And how long have you kept this secret?" he asked, determined to let his need for Harry to tell the truth prevail over his curiosity.

"For a few months." Harry winced and lowered his head. "At first I didn't tell you because it was part of the same body of knowledge about necromancy I was trying to keep secret, and then I thought that—well, it really _wasn't _my secret. I didn't know if telling you would endanger you, or her."

Draco waited a few minutes before he nodded, but he could see this. All too easily, really. Harry's guilt complex and sense of duty would have demanded that he do what he could to protect everyone, excluding himself.

"Very well," he said. "And why did they decide not to kill you?"

As Harry brightened and launched into his explanation, Draco sat down, scratched Politesse's head, and thought about whether it was fair to demand complete honesty from Harry. After all, he had secrets of his own.

Such as the way he had glanced back when they were Apparating and seen a distant figure with bright, pale hair watching them from the top of a hill.


	32. Full Speed to Understanding

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Thirty-Two—Full Speed to Understanding_

"I don't understand it."

Harry kept his face relaxed and his eyes aimed straight ahead as Weston walked slowly around him. On the other side of the classroom, Lowell was walking as slowly around Draco. Draco's face was locked in a frown, but he said nothing. Harry knew his true state from that "sense" of him that he'd developed more than anything else.

"A barrier remains between you, but you are functioning together more effectively than you ever have," Weston said, halting between them and glancing back and forth as if she thought Draco and Harry had done this on purpose to perplex her. "How is that possible? What is the nature of the barrier?"

"A private argument," Draco said, before Harry could come up with any soothing lie. "You don't need to worry about it, Aurors."

"But we should." Lowell leaned forwards, staring into Draco's face from so close that Harry knew he would have backed away if he was Draco. But Draco stared back boredly, not twitching an eyelash, and Lowell finally made a disgusted sound and backed away himself. "We are the ones training you in using compatible magic."

Draco smiled. "Exactly. So why should you worry if you're doing it right and that means that we're leaning things?"

Lowell turned and looked at Weston instead of speaking again. She raised her hands and extended them, palms up and empty. Harry had no idea what the gesture meant, but Lowell suddenly looked more resigned than frustrated.

"Very well," he said. "Be here in a week's time for your next lesson. By then, I think you should have mastered casting through each other's wands without any unfortunate _accidents._" He touched the singed ends of his dark hair where one of Draco's spells, cast through Harry's wand, had caught him, and raised an eyebrow.

"Yes, Auror," Draco said, and then grabbed Harry's wrist and dragged him out of there. Harry had time to nod to both of them before he was forced to follow Draco, but that was all.

"Do you think that was the right thing to do?" Harry asked, as they rattled back to their rooms. No one else was awake this early in the morning in the trainee barracks, at least most of the time, and their footsteps seemed to bounce off the walls more loudly than Harry knew they really did. "They might only be more curious now."

"They know that we're hiding something, but not what," Draco said shortly. "I'm more worried about what our enemies actually know, and what they could use to hurt us."

Harry looked at him sidelong. Draco's smile had dropped away as if he'd never used it, and his teeth were gritted, his face shiny with sweat. Harry blinked. "Draco, what's wrong?"

"I've been thinking more about what you told me the other day," Draco said. Harry remembered what he had said about Portillo Lopez and her order, and nodded slowly, though he didn't see what Draco was getting at. "What's to keep them from attacking you at any time they like?" Draco asked grimly. "How do you know you can trust them? What happens if they go to the Aurors themselves about what you did, or even drop a note? Or _she_ could pretend to find a note like that."

"I don't know," Harry admitted. He hadn't thought much about that "danger." "Why should she? If she wanted to, she and her people could probably have killed me back there on that battlefield. I was tired, and there isn't much I could have done to stop them."

"Killing you is one thing," Draco said. "Especially far away from the Ministry, where they would have to explain what they were doing there themselves, and they might not have been able to get rid of all the witnesses. But getting you arrested for Dark magic? The press would be having too much fun with the accusations in the first place to pay any attention to how you'd been found out."

Harry sighed and pulled on Draco's wrist until he slowed to a stop. Draco continued to tug ahead for a few seconds, like a dog impatiently pulling against the leash, and then turned around and lowered his head. His face was so hostile that Harry had to wonder how much stress he'd been living with in the almost-a-week since the battle.

"I love that you worry about me," Harry whispered. He lifted both hands and drew his fingers slowly through Draco's hair, pressing against his temples, caressing the skin. Draco sighed, and his eyelashes fluttered, and his head dropped. Harry leaned in and kissed his cheek gently. "I appreciate it. I only wish that it didn't hurt you so."

Draco took a few gentle breaths and then opened his eyes. "I'm all right," he said, his voice more normal.

"I don't think you are, though," Harry told him quietly. "There's no reason for Portillo Lopez and her group to turn against me."

"There's no reason for them to protect you, either," Draco said harshly. He stepped back from Harry—Harry bit his lip to see that his attempted comfort had so small an effect on Draco—and drove his fist into the wall. "If we had a hold on them of some kind," Draco said, half-ranting, "if we could blackmail them, or if you'd put a spell on them that would let you kill them from a distance, that's one thing. But you can't trust people you don't have in your power."

Harry stood still for a moment. He knew that Draco hadn't meant his last words to hurt Harry, and since Harry had done plenty of things to hurt Draco in the past, he could live with the immediate sting and grow past it. He _could_.

Then he said, "I do have a sort of power over them. I could reveal the existence of their order, and my proof—Pensieve memories—would be of the same sort they would have to use if they wanted to prove that I practiced necromancy. Portillo Lopez and I have a truce, though. She won't reveal me if I don't reveal her."

Draco shook his head. His face was pale again, except for the streaks of brilliant pink in his cheeks. Harry wondered how long it had been since he'd seen Draco without them. He couldn't remember, actually. "It has to be more than that. She might decide that her _principles _outweigh her terror of being exposed. I told you, you can't trust anyone unless you know that they're terrified of you."

"Does that include me?" Harry asked softly.

Draco jerked a little, as though Harry's words had awakened him from a dream, and stared at him, blinking. "What are you talking about?"

"Do you have to have some sort of hold over me before you can trust me?" Harry asked. He leaned forwards and braced himself with his hands on Draco's shoulders—or perhaps he was trying to restrain Draco. He really didn't know. "Would you trust me at all if you didn't know secrets about me that you could expose, if you wanted, to put me at a disadvantage?"

Draco shook his head as though Harry had asked him a question that made no sense. "It's different," he said. "I was talking about enemies. Of course I want power over people with the means to hurt me."

"But you _said _anyone," Harry murmured. "And I have more power to hurt you than anyone else. You made that clear when you found me practicing that magic in the first place."

Draco shook his head again. "You're confusing things," he said. "You're distracting me from my real point, which I was making, and which you should listen to."

Harry said nothing, but waited. Draco was more than intelligent enough to figure out what Harry was driving at. In fact, he probably already had, but he didn't want to admit it.

Harry just hoped that his answers would be of the kind that Harry could hear, and live with.

*

_He knows that I didn't mean him. Or friends in general, though I don't have any friends like he has Weasley and Granger. _A pulse of jealousy traveled through Draco when he thought that. _He _has _to know that I didn't mean anything like that. He's just decided to take it more literally than I meant it and to cause trouble._

"I trust you," Draco said. He spoke the words with barely a puff of breath between his lips, but he didn't think Harry needed more. Anyway, the lines of tension were already easing from his face, although he didn't smile. "I think I've proved that enough, given what you did on the battlefield, and the fact that I accepted you back into my rooms afterwards."

"Maybe," Harry said. "And I don't want to keep testing your trust. But I have to wonder—if you want power over anybody and everybody, do you ever completely trust them? Because the more you do, the more you hand them power over you, too. And I don't know how deep your dislike of possibly being betrayed or controlled runs." His hands smoothed along Draco's arms, down from his shoulders.

Draco drew a deep breath. He could still remember the sharp, terrified look on Harry's face when Draco had walked into the necromantic ritual. He could still remember the way the betrayal had struck him like a blade in the back.

But he hadn't considered that at all when he was talking about Portillo Lopez and her group. He had simply assumed that Harry would know what he meant and agree with him, without further explanation.

"I like power," Draco said at last, and he resented the way his words stumbled. This was a truth he had long since accepted about himself. It ought not to be so hard to explain it to someone else. "I panic when I can't defend myself. I hate it when someone else has to rescue me. But you knew that," he added, realizing that Harry's eyes hadn't widened in surprise or anything like it.

Harry tilted his head to the side and bit his lip thoughtfully. "Yes, I did. I had assumed that you made an exception for me and other people you trusted, but then I wondered if you trusted anyone else, and then I remembered what I had done to make you distrust me, and…" He sighed and inexplicably leaned in to kiss Draco's cheek. Draco had thought they were arguing. "I hate to think of you being lonely," Harry whispered into his ear.

Draco jerked his head back in spite of the sweetness the kiss had sent pouring through him. "What are you nattering about, idiot? This is about weakness and strength, not about solitude."

"If you can't trust anyone," Harry said softly, "or if you don't dare let anyone close to you because of lack of trust, then you're standing in a circle of loneliness. And I think you deserve better than that." His eyes were completely and utterly sincere.

Draco stared at the floor. He hadn't thought about it that way, mostly because the occasional thoughts that occurred to him about it got pushed away. He couldn't afford to stand around sniffling about how he was _lonely_. He had to find ways to defend himself, and for a while he had thought he would have to find them alone.

That Harry was offering this, and that even in the middle of a fight about whether or not Draco trusted him he had been concerned first for how Draco suffered from the effects of his own paranoia—

Draco didn't know what to do with the emotions boiling in him, which felt like anger but were too soft-edged for it. Anything he spoke would probably spoil the mood, and he didn't want to watch Harry back away from him with a carefully shut face again.

So he translated it into action, leaning forwards, roughly grabbing the back of Harry's neck, and slamming his mouth viciously home.

Harry gasped at first, but then returned the kiss with more than interest, his fingers sinking into Draco's arms as if he could use them like manacles to keep and hold. Draco twisted nearer, winding his free arm around Harry's shoulders, pulling so hard that he almost didn't care if he hurt Harry.

Well, he _did _care, but he had to show what he was feeling more, and this was the only acceptable way to do it.

Harry murmured incoherently against his mouth, bit and licked at his lips, and then met him tongue to tongue. Draco had never had a kiss that was so like a battle. Of course, he didn't think he had ever kissed someone as ferocious and committed as he was, either.

He thrust his hips into Harry's and bit the inside of his cheek. Harry hissed and tore his head away to gasp in air.

"We shouldn't do this where anyone might see," he hissed, even as his hands dug into Draco's skin and he _felt _as if he would be more than willing to continue.

Draco chuckled, finding it strange that _Harry _was speaking in the voice of reason for once, and held back a bit of his intense desire. He nodded and began to pull Harry in the direction of their rooms once again, doing his best to think of something other than how Harry's muscles flexed under his touch and how he gasped and smelled.

When they were inside the room, Draco shut the door firmly, cast a spell that should prevent any intentional voyeurs from hearing what was going on, and then fastened his mouth back in place.

Harry returned as eagerly as he received, his hands holding Draco's hips and the back of his head this time, his tongue leading the way for nipping little bites. When Draco was dazed and breathing hard, his throat bobbing with the effort to control himself, Harry dropped to his knees.

Draco stared down at him. He hadn't imagined something like this happening—which was idiotic, since he _ought _to have been imagining all sorts of things like this when he and Harry were sleeping chastely beside each other in the bed. But he had assumed, without thinking about it, that more months would pass before they had sex again, and that _he _would decide when they did so.

Harry paused, looked up into Draco's eyes, and shook his head as if surfacing from a long sojourn underwater. "Is this all right?" he whispered, his hands sliding up to Draco's hips. "Can I do this?"

Draco swallowed. He still felt a surge of uncertainty, but the power went deeper than that, welling up from so far beneath him that he felt as if he were a cork tossed about on an ocean. Harry might be the one who had chosen to move things along, but Draco was the one who would get to choose how far he actually went.

"It's more than fine," he said, and splayed his legs and started to tug at his trousers, so Harry wouldn't get the idea that he was a passive victim in all this.

Harry smiled and leaned in to press a kiss to Draco's erection through his trousers. Draco started and shivered, and nearly embarrassed himself right there. But he held back, and by the time that he thought to look down again, his trousers and pants were gone and Harry was lipping hesitantly at the head of his cock.

Draco wanted to shut his eyes and tilt his head back until it brushed against the wall, but that might seem weak. Besides, it would take away from a sight he wanted very much to see: Harry's mouth opening to take him in, while _his_ eyes fluttered shut and he gave quiet moans. So Draco struggled, and won, and watched Harry suck him.

It felt incredible. The brushes of intense warmth and wetness were tentative, as though Harry still wasn't sure of the best way to use his tongue. Well, he hadn't sucked Draco a _lot _before he had started practicing necromancy and they had lost this, Draco thought forgivingly as his hips flexed. And he didn't need to be some expert. What he could do was more than good enough.

What he could do was what Draco needed.

"I _do _trust you," Draco whispered to him, when the pleasure began to spin him about and his control over his tongue loosened. "I promise. I trust you more than you know. There's no one else I would let do this—oh, like _that_—"

Harry spun his tongue and then stroked it along the vein under Draco's cock as if to say that he was delighted to hear it.

"So wonderful," Draco said. "Hard as you are sometimes, and stubborn, and bloody _dangerous_, there's no one else—there couldn't be anyone else—" He latched his fingers in Harry's hair and tugged as the pleasure came charging at him like sunlight. "Never anyone else—"

He _fell _headlong into bliss, and he cried out weakly, his hips pumping forwards and his fingers digging deep. Harry made a gagging noise, then swallowed, and Draco slumped against him, thinking absently that it was Harry's mouth more than the wall that kept him upright.

Harry stood up, wiping at his mouth and staring at Draco, and then seized Draco's hand and wrapped it around himself. Draco shuddered and tried to help, but he really was feeling weak, as though his legs had done more work to make him orgasm than they really had. So Harry wanked himself with Draco's fingers more than Draco brought him off.

It didn't matter. Draco still got to watch the way a flush worked along Harry's throat, and his head fell back, and his hips thrust, and he moaned loud and long and then louder and longer when he splattered into the palm of Draco's hand.

Draco shut his eyes when Harry's spasms had passed, utterly content. Harry laughed and kissed him.

"You should see the look on your face," he murmured.

"I suspect it's nowhere near as good as the look on yours," Draco murmured back, and leaned against Harry. He could feel the wetness squishing on Harry's hand and his shirt. It didn't matter. He was more content than he had been for days. Harry had managed to relieve his fears with his words even more than his actions.

"Are we all right?" Harry asked into Draco's ear, blowing gently along his shoulder while Draco shivered.

Draco nodded. "We are."

*

"I'm sorry, Harry." Hermione gave him an apologetic smile and paused with her finger in one of the books that were piled in front of her. Harry had found her in a corner of the library with books sprawled on her lap, her notes, a second chair next to her, and the floor. "I've looked everywhere I could think of for information about necromancy in other languages. None of the books references Parseltongue."

Harry scowled. He had been sure that Hermione, who thought _all _the answers could be found in books, would search until she found something. If Parseltongue could be used to command illusions to turn into a giant snake, Hermione would say, that meant someone had done it before, and _that _meant someone had written about it. Harry hadn't realized how much he'd been counting on the reassurance of nice, sane information until the reassurance was gone. "You're sure?"

Hermione nodded, giving him a soft look. "Why don't you go back to bed? It's Sunday."

Harry gave a pointed look at the pile of books that surrounded her.

Hermione might have flushed the tiniest bit. "I'm different," she said, and then placed her nose back in the tome in front of her, resolutely ignoring him. Harry thought the tome looked like some sort of history book.

Harry sighed and left her there, going back to their rooms with a scowl on his face. The Parseltongue necromancy might have spared his life when he was speaking about it to Portillo Lopez and her friends, but it was strange enough—and so was the dark shimmer at the back of his head—that he wanted answers.

The dark shimmer stayed, even though it had now been more than a week since they fought Nihil. Harry sometimes caught glimpses of floating figures out of the corner of his eye, too, although they always disappeared when he turned his head. He'd questioned Hermione and Ron as subtly as he could to find out if they saw them, too, and had got blank looks and shaking heads for his trouble.

Harry had told Draco about the visions; he was done having secrets from him. Draco had seemed to think it was connected to the vision of Nihil that Harry had already seen in the mirror, but he didn't know how or why, either.

The figures often were misty and grey, clad in cowls, which made Harry worry that he was seeing Death Eaters at first. But the one face he'd caught a glimpse of was a terrified young girl's, her lips parted and her eyes so wide that she looked ready to faint. Of course that had made him turn around faster, wanting to help, and of course that had meant she faded all the faster.

_I just want some bloody answers, _Harry thought as he stomped down the corridor that led to the door of his and Draco's rooms. _You'd think it wouldn't be all that hard to get them, for once in my life. But no, even without Dumbledore around to conceal the secrets, strange things just keep happening to me._

Another flicker of movement showed in the corner of his eye. Harry whirled sharply towards it, wondering if he could take the floating figures off-guard if he just moved fast enough.

But it wasn't a ghost, or whatever those figures really were. Instead, Roger Aran, the Spell Lexicon instructor, stood there, a bright scowl on his face. Harry gulped, wondering if he'd missed a lesson with him. Aran hadn't really mentored him and Draco as such, just given them extra work and lectured at them, but he would still get angry if they missed an appointment.

"Listen," Aran said. "I did not want to do this."

"Sir?" Harry asked tentatively. The first thing he could think of was that Portillo Lopez had told the other instructors about his necromancy after all and sent Aran to find and arrest him. He was sure, now, that he hadn't had an appointment to meet Aran for a lesson today.

"I never asked for this role," Aran said. "The others would be angry if they knew." Then he paused and shook his head as though conducting a silent argument with himself. "Of course, the whole _point _is that they don't know."

Harry put one hand on his wand, hoping it was unobtrusive. Aran might be dangerous; at the very least, he sounded a little unbalanced. "Sir?" he asked again, thinking that was his best bet right now.

Aran's wand moved so smoothly and swiftly that Harry was still gaping at it when he heard the sound of the incantation. "_Abdo donum aquilum_," Aran murmured.

Harry's world vanished into a vortex of pain.


	33. The Taste of Power

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Thirty-Three—The Taste of Power_

The blow to his shoulder almost knocked Draco off his chair. He gasped and clutched at the place the invisible strike had landed, staring wildly around the room. He had been studying for an exam next week, so intently that he reckoned he might have missed seeing Harry come in.

But Harry wasn't there, and the strike repeated, rocking Draco in his seat. He swore and stood up, drawing his wand. Had someone come in under Harry's Invisibility Cloak to play a prank on him? The only one he could think of was Weasley, but the idea that Harry would lend his Cloak to Weasley and not warn Draco—

The sharp pain returned, and this time Draco recognized it for what it was. The compatible magic was trying to tell him that Harry was in trouble.

He swore again and raced from the room, following the silent, insistent tug. It wasn't calling him to Apparate, he thought, which meant Harry and his attacker were probably here in the building.

Again the pain. Draco gritted his teeth. He was going as fast as he could, and the bloody magic would just have to take in the limitations of his legs and feet and the stone corridors, and be satisfied.

If he thought hard enough about such things, he could distract himself from the worry about Harry that was racing through him like a torrent of knife-edged water.

*

The pain dug invisible claws into the back of his skull and held on. There was a beak, too, Harry thought dimly, a sharp beak intent on cracking open his head and scooping out his brains.

It hurt _so much_, and Draco wasn't nearby, so he couldn't use compatible magic to stop Aran. But Harry did his best to hang on, because he didn't want to let Aran win, either. He _had _to survive and stop him, or at least wait long enough for Draco to get here. Harry could only hope the magic would bring him as it had before, when he was confronting Nemo's beasts in the Forbidden Forest.

"This is taking longer than it should," Aran said, as if complaining to another person, and then repeated the spell.

Harry screamed as the pain redoubled. He couldn't see anything with the way his eyes watered, but he aimed his wand in the general direction of Aran and whispered, "_Expelliarmus!"_ under his breath.

Aran cried out, and Harry knew it had done _something_. He got his hand up, just in case, and felt the wand settle safely into his palm.

But the pain didn't stop.

"I didn't want to do this," Aran said. "No one ever asks me the best way to avoid the most troublesome problems. I advised incapacitating him and taking it that way, but did anyone ask me? _No_. Orders, that's all it is." Harry heard him coming nearer, the shuffle of his feet that he didn't even attempt to conceal. He probably assumed that Harry couldn't do anything to him no matter how loud he was. "Give me back my wand, boy. The pain should end soon, and then I can do as I should have been allowed to do in the first place."

Harry didn't want to think about what would happen when the pain ended. Instead, he kicked out, spinning in place on the floor the way Morningstar had taught them, and hit Aran's legs.

Aran stumbled, but Harry didn't hear the heavier sound of him falling. "Little bastard," Aran murmured. "I've been an Auror for years, longer than you've lived. You shouldn't have thought to use those tactics on me. Give—"

And then Draco was there.

Harry could have been locked in a stone room and still felt the difference. The compatible magic announced Draco in his head and his bones like a chorus of silver trumpets. Harry immediately reached towards him, towards the sense of him, and felt magic flood him as though he stood under a waterfall of it.

Harry scrambled up, the horrible pain in the back of his head suddenly diminished. He kept tight hold of Aran's wand, and cast a Sticking Charm so that it would cling to his palm and hopefully resist most attempts to retrieve it. Then he turned and placed his back against Draco's, sneering a little at the shock on Aran's face.

"Not what you expected from a little bastard, is it?" he asked.

*

Draco tensed. He had been surprised when he rounded the corner and paused, because he didn't know if Aran was attacking Harry or trying to help him up from an attack that might have left him sprawled on the floor. Harry's words left no doubt, though. Aran had been the one to cast this spell.

"Why?" Draco asked, studying Aran. He didn't look hurt or stressed, the way Draco would have thought he would if someone were blackmailing him into doing this. He simply looked annoyed.

Aran sighed. "It concerns matters that you don't need to know about and things that you wouldn't understand even if I explained them to you," he said, words bright and sharp as the light off new-minted coins. "And there's no reason that this needs to involve destroying both of you. Move out of the way, Trainee Malfoy. My spell had almost succeeded, and if Mr. Potter will let me have my wand back, then I can promise him a swift termination to it and a swifter demise."

Draco drew in a disappointed breath, but it was fierce with delight as well. Here was someone who could be defeated, unlike Nihil and Nemo and Nusquam. Here was someone they stood a chance of bringing to justice.

And more than that, here was someone who, from his language, was prone to underestimate them.

"Harry is my partner," he said. "Did you think I would back away and leave him on your say-so?"

Aran's head came up, and he stared at Draco as if he didn't believe what he was hearing. Then he said, cautiously, "I am prepared to induct you into the knowledge I was holding back from you, Trainee Malfoy. I am prepared to offer you far more powerful spells than anyone else will learn in your year."

Draco sneered at him. _He underestimates me in another way as well. He does not seem to believe that I have any loyalty or compassion._

"That's not a bribe I would be interested in taking even if it _was _enough to persuade me to ignore murder," he said. "Harry. Are you ready?"

"More than ready," Harry said, and his voice was as strong as Draco's. Perhaps he was thinking the same thing as Draco was, and Draco knew he had to be glad to have a reason to strike back at his tormentor.

"Good," Draco said. "_Reducto!_"

The Blasting Curse caught Aran in the chest, just as he had started to reach out for Draco with a contemptuous expression. He rammed into the wall and coughed, one hand rising to touch his chest. Draco hoped viciously that he had broken something.

"_Incarcerous!_" barked Harry, as the flow of compatible magic passed over to him in a surge as strong as a wind changing direction, and Draco soaked up the flood coming back the other way when the conjured ropes had bound Aran's limbs.

"Is that it?" Harry added a moment later, while Aran sat there staring at them as if he couldn't believe what had happened. "Should we take him and turn him back in to the instructors?"

"Oh, of course not," Draco said. He could hear the smirk in his voice, and Harry leaned more heavily against him, hearing it as well. "He's the Spell Lexicon instructor. He's _dangerous_. We have to make absolutely sure that he's helpless while we decide what to do with him—which might not be telling the instructors, after all."

"You're right," Harry said. "Of course you're right. I can't believe I didn't think of that." Aran turned his incredulous look on Harry, and only then began to struggle against the ropes. Draco glanced down in time to see Harry carefully place Aran's wand behind his back, and then nod at Draco. "Do you want to do the honors?"

"How did you know?" Draco murmured, before he cast the Stunner that would knock Aran out. Harry followed it with a spell to gag him. The magic raced back to Draco, and he tightened the ropes on Aran's hands and feet, modifying them so that even if some of the knots were loose, he wouldn't be able to move his fingers or toes enough to take advantage of them. Back to Harry, and he paused in consideration, then changed the ropes again so that Aran would choke himself if he tried to move too much.

They grinned at each other over his body, but as his excitement drained away, Draco's concern came back full-force. He moved forwards and laid a tender hand on the back of Harry's head, which he had seen Harry grabbing when he came around the corner. "How badly did he hurt you? What kind of spell did he cast?"

"I'm not sure," Harry said, obligingly lowering his head so that Draco could examine him. Draco couldn't see any cuts from the outside, which made sense when Harry added, "It felt like a spell that attacked my mind."

Draco hissed, and hoped that his hands didn't shake too obviously as he turned Harry around and cast a spell that would hold his hair out of the way. "You could have brain damage," he said, laying his wand right next to the skin. He knew spells that could give one a rough picture of a brain from the outside, but they would only work with direct access to the skin. "Perhaps he was meant to destroy your mind without killing you."

"I don't know," Harry said. "From the sound of it, he wasn't happy that he'd been sent on this mission, and he seemed to think that he had a better plan."

"Of course he would think that," Draco muttered, and began to chant the diagnostic spell he remembered from one of the books in his father's library. Lucius would not enjoy the idea that the Malfoys' hard-won knowledge was being used to heal a half-blood Gryffindor, which was one of the reasons Draco reveled in using it this way. But it was also the best option he knew; they could hardly take Harry to Portillo Lopez, and there were no other Healers Draco would trust, for fear of Nihil's corruption.

The spell took effect, a soft white glow that surrounded Harry's head and sank into it. While they waited for it to come back out again, Draco ran his fingers gently up and down Harry's tense shoulders. Harry sighed and leaned his head on Draco's neck. Draco took the chance to kiss him, sucking at his lips until Harry parted them to let his tongue in.

The white glow returned, and Draco was so close to Harry that he blinked and had to step back before he could "read" it properly. When he could, he sighed in relief. The brightness hovering in front of him was exactly as clear as it had been when he first cast the spell. Brain damage would have shown up on it as sickly green and black blotches, and if that had happened, he would have…he wasn't sure what he would do.

Of course, that left the question of what Aran had meant to do. Draco turned to study him coolly. He hadn't woken from the Stunner. But it would be best if they moved him soon, so that no one could come along and take the decision about what to do away from them.

"You're fine physically," he said, Disillusioning Aran's body so that they stood a chance of getting back to their rooms with him hidden. "Do you happen to remember the incantation he used when he cast the spell?"

"It wasn't a very long one," Harry said thoughtfully, and Draco could almost hear him struggling. Of course, his memory wasn't as good as Draco's, but Draco held back the tendency to snap because of that and waited patiently. "I'm pretty sure that it had the word _donum_ in it. I don't really remember the others."

Draco's stomach contracted. "Of course," he breathed, turning around to stare at Harry. "_Donum _means gift. I wouldn't be surprised if he came to try and remove that dark shimmer that you told me about, the one in the back of your mind."

Harry reared back and stared at him, touching the back of his head the way Draco had, as if he could feel external damage even though Draco had clearly told him there wasn't any. "But that means—" He frowned. "How could he know about it?"

"Nihil probably senses the presence of it," Draco said quietly. "Or perhaps Portillo Lopez, though why she would agree to leave you alone and then send someone after you is beyond me." He felt his shoulders tensing. He would have been just as glad if something could be done about Portillo Lopez. But he knew from the single flat look Harry gave him that he wasn't going to discuss it, and turned away with a sigh.

"She could have been overruled by someone in her Order, I reckon," Harry said, and then nodded at Aran. "Well, let's move him back to our room and alert the others. We need to decide on how to interrogate him. And what we're going to do about him," he added. "Until we know for sure that it wasn't Portillo Lopez, I'm reluctant to trust the Fellowship with him."

"I'm reluctant to trust the Fellowship at all," Draco said, and cast _Mobilicorpus. _Aran rose into the air with a jerk. "After all, Aran is a fellow Auror. If infection can be that close to them and they couldn't sense it, they're either dull in their senses…"

"Or we have a traitor," Harry finished with a sigh. He rubbed his forehead and murmured, "Fuck."

"Wish we could," Draco said.

That finally won him a smile from Harry, at least, if nothing more substantial.

*

Harry leaned against the wall and scowled at Aran, folding his arms. Things would have been so much easier if he hadn't shown up.

Draco and Hermione were arguing over what they should tell the rest of the instructors, in particular the rest of the Fellowship. Hermione wanted them to reveal Aran's presence and his complicity with someone—if not with Nihil—at once. "They deserve to know that someone this evil is here and attacked a trainee," was how her argument ran, and she hadn't changed it very much except in wording since she made it two hours ago.

Draco was shaking his head and adopting a superior expression that Harry knew must be putting Hermione's back up, explaining that they couldn't trust _most _of the instructors, now, if Aran was among them. How had his infection by Nihil gone unnoticed? How had he managed to come on Harry alone, and would the instructors believe Aran or Harry if they asked questions? It would be one man's word against another's—and even if Draco contributed his word that he had arrived and found Aran attacking Harry, some of the Aurors wouldn't believe Draco because he was so close to Harry.

"You're acting as though there's nothing we can do," Hermione said at one point, in a voice that rose to a hiss.

Harry looked over his shoulder and caught Ron's eye. Ron gave him a helpless look. Ventus, her wand tapping against her knee as it had done since Harry called her to this meeting, didn't look away from Aran. He was still unconscious, but Ventus had said that he could wake up at any time, which was certainly true, and that she would keep guard on him while the rest of them did "less important things."

"Not at all," Draco said, his voice so smooth and arrogant that Harry had to roll his eyes, as much as he loved him. When he turned around to look at him, Draco was leaning against the wall, his arms folded, his legs crossed at the ankle and his face set in the most perfect sneer Harry had ever seen him wear. "What I'm saying is that it would have been easier if we had taken Aran to the Fellowship immediately."

Hermione stood up straighter, pushing her hair back from her face the way she had when they'd recovered from the battle. Her eyes were narrow, and then she practically spat her words out like an angry cat. "You—you brought him here and took away that option on purpose!"

"Why, yes," Draco said, practically fluttering his eyelashes at her. "I wondered how long it would take you to notice that."

"You can't just—you can't just question him without evidence," Hermione said, all but stamping her foot.

"But questioning him _gets _the evidence," Draco said, and uncrossed his legs so that he could lean closer to her, his sneer gone. "Listen, Granger. I'm tired of our enemies attacking us and then escaping, or attacking us and then being taken away by the Aurors, who question them or examine what they brought with them, but somehow never manage to gain any information. I don't know whether that's down to our enemies managing to be cleverer than our hidebound instructors, or traitors in the Ministry itself, or something else. But I _do_ know that we have the chance to ask why Aran, of all people, who's always seemed more interested in his spells than anything else, turned to Nihil. I'm going to take it."

Harry stepped forwards, right beside Ron. Draco might finally have gone too far, and they had to be prepared to intervene. Ventus glanced up without interest and then turned her gaze back to Aran.

Hermione, though, bit her lip a few times and stared at her hands as if she were thinking hard thoughts. Then she looked up with a sigh. "I'm afraid you're right," she said.

Draco stared at her, then cupped his hand around his ear. "Could you repeat that a little louder, please?" he asked. "I don't think I quite heard it."

Hermione slapped at his arm, slightly harder than Harry knew she would have tried to hit him or Ron. Draco moved adroitly back and listened with raised eyebrows while Hermione explained. "Something always goes wrong. I'm sick of it, of our not being able to affect our fates. I want to do that for once. Question him. I know you have Veritaserum. Use that, if you need to. We have to have answers, and we've only got one that really matters so far—who Nihil used to be. Maybe Aran will have more."

Draco shut his mouth and swept her an elaborate bow. "Thank you for your permission, High Priestess of Gryffindor Righteousness," he said.

This time, Harry did step forwards, catch his eye, and frown. Draco seemed to know that it wasn't necessary, and was already holding up a hand by the time Hermione finished her first outraged expression. "Sorry," he said, which was probably the only word that would have kept Hermione silent right then. "You're right. What's important is the questioning of our enemies, and not the baiting of one another."

"Ah," Ventus said, in the same calm, eerie voice she had used when she was talking about her battle skills under Veritaserum. "I see that you are finally learning what a comitatus is."

Draco sighed, as if to dismiss Ventus and all her peculiarities, and turned. "I'll fetch the Veritaserum," he said. "Wake up Aran."

Harry was happy to do so with a few well-placed slaps, and felt even happier when the man stared at him and then around his and Draco's rooms with wide eyes.

"Where am I?" Aran whispered, after Harry had pulled the gag from his mouth, and his arms flexed in the ropes, then stopped. He must have realized at once that he would find no give in them, because he stopped and scowled instead. "And why have you brought me here?"

"Those questions are the ones you will answer for us," Draco said, appearing again with the Veritaserum. He held it out and paused. Harry stifled a chuckle. He was only beginning to realize, with a thoroughness he could never have imagined seeing in school, how deep Draco's sense of drama ran. "Do you recognize this?"

Unexpectedly, Aran laughed. Draco paused, and his fingers clenched around the vial as his eyes narrowed. Harry stood up and moved to his side. There was a tension to Draco's frown he had never seen before, and the sense of him he had gained through compatible magic training raced up and down like a fire.

"You can put me under that," Aran said. "But the very nature of what I am will defeat any questions you ask me." He shrugged, his hands flexing hard in the bonds. Harry drew his wand and cast a subtle strengthening spell on the ropes, just in case. "The rest of me planned well for this. You ought to have known that, when another part of him was able to lie under Veritaserum and say that he was not part of Nihil."

Draco stood still, that dangerous tension radiating through him. "Explain," he whispered.

Aran gave him a pitying look. "I did like you," he said. "I never agreed with the orders the rest of me gave. So I'll tell you. Veritaserum was made to work on humans."

Draco put the Veritaserum down, gently, on what turned out to be nothing. Harry lunged forwards and caught the vial before it could shatter. Draco didn't seem to notice. His eyes were shining, and he took a step forwards, bending over Aran with a smile that made Harry edge away.

Hermione's face was white and pinched. She and Ron exchanged glances, and Ron wrapped his arm around her shoulder. Ventus rose to her feet, but didn't move, instead looking back and forth between Draco and Aran.

"I want to know what you know," Draco whispered. Harry had the impression that they had all been frozen, waiting for his words, and could only move and breathe again now that they had heard them. "I want to know what some of your words mean, and why they matter. I want to know what your relationship to Nihil is."

"You could ask me questions for a hundred years and never understand the answers," Aran breathed, sounding as if he had some of the same fascination with Draco's words that the rest of them did.

Draco's wand was abruptly in his hand. He pointed it straight at Aran and chanted words so fast that Harry thought he wouldn't have had a chance of understanding them even if he spoke fluent Latin.

Aran's head tilted back, and suddenly his cheeks flushed red. His eyes bulged out of his face. He tried to speak, or at least his jaw and tongue moved, but no sound emerged. Harry didn't know what was happening.

"What are you doing?" he whispered to Draco, taking his arm. "We don't want him to die!"

"I don't think he _can_ die," Draco said, not looking around or moving, his eyes never wavering from Aran's face. "And anyway, this spell can't kill him. It'll only make him a little more amenable."

Harry waited, not sure what else he should do, and then Aran slumped back, his chest heaving, his breath whistling in and out of his lungs. Draco smiled again and bent closer.

"I will do that again and again," he said, "and worse, unless you agree to tell me the truth."

*

The power spiraled dizzily through Draco's chest, up to his head, and then exploded into fine grains of sugar in his mouth. His tongue was heavy. His eyes were heavy, and wanted to droop shut. He could have flown to the moon or seized Harry and taken him in front of everybody.

At that moment, he knew he was stepping into his own.


	34. Scattered and Shaken

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Thirty-Four—Scattered and Shaken_

"Don't do that again," Aran whispered, his voice so shaky that Harry winced back before it. "I'll tell you what you need to know. Just—just don't do that again."

Draco stood in front of Aran, looking down at him. His face was perfectly calm, so fine that Harry thought it would have been easy to mistake it for the face of a statue. "I won't need to," Draco said, in a voice as cool, "if you'll tell us the truth, and what you are, and who gave you your orders."

Aran whimpered for long minutes without replying. Harry shook his head in wonder. Aran hadn't seemed the same since he attacked him in the corridor—the Spell Lexicon instructor Harry knew would never have let himself be taken by surprise and defeated by two trainees—but this was the greatest difference Harry had noticed. Aran cowered away from Draco as if Draco were Nihil, lifting one hand to shield his face.

And Draco stood there with such pitiless eyes that Harry was sure he was enjoying it, on some level.

"What did you do to him?" Harry whispered, bending close enough to Draco that he thought other people would have a hard time overhearing.

"Isn't it obvious?" Draco asked, and then glanced at Harry with a mean edge to his smile that Harry hoped never to see again. "I hit him with a spell that didn't permit him to breathe for a short time, and he's terrified I'll do it again."

"I got that part," Harry said, lowering his voice further. How could Draco sound _proud _of that, of tormenting another human being? "But why is he so frightened of that? If he really is part of Nihil, then he must know that he isn't going to die, no matter what happens to the human body that he's wearing at the moment."

"Oh, Harry," Draco said, and laughed into his ear in a way that caused certain stirrings from Harry's body he didn't like to think much about. "It _is _obvious. But you're polite and pleasant and _good _enough that I'm not surprised you don't see it."

Harry jerked away, his neck prickling. He wanted to think it was with indignation at what Draco had said, but he was afraid it came from—well, fear. "Explain it to me, then," he said, his voice rustling and crackling like eggshells being stepped on. "Since I don't get it."

Draco smiled at him for some time more before moving his glance back to Aran. Aran had stopped whimpering, but still sat with his arms folded and his face half-shielded by one hand. Hermione stepped forwards and knelt down next to him, though she had more sense than to touch him. Her brow was furrowed, as though she were studying the invisible marks Draco's spell had left.

"What caused Nihil to become Nihil?" Draco asked. "What makes him so intent on getting vengeance against Death Eaters?"

"They tortured him," Harry said. "Or part of him." It was still hard to explain what he had seen in that vision in Nihil's mind. He had guessed, though, that Nihil wanted to protect it not because his original identity was a matter of such importance, but because the vision contained the seeds of an answer to what he was.

"Yes," Draco said, and looked back at Aran. "If he is part of Nihil, then he will fear torture more than anything else. It doesn't even need to be torture as severe as what Nihil, or Caradoc Dearborn, endured. He won't be able to put up with even the slightest suggestion of pain, and we can use it to make him tell us the truth."

Harry closed his eyes. Then, knowing that Draco was watching him with eyes keen enough to score slashes on his cheeks, he shook his head.

* * *

Draco sighed. He had been afraid of this reaction. Or not afraid, exactly, because he knew what needed to be done and he would do it whether Harry approved or not, but he had known Harry wouldn't support him in a time when it would be infinitely easier to have his support.

"Harry," he said. "Do you have a better solution to the problem of getting answers, especially since we can't use Veritaserum?"

Harry gave him a level look and folded his arms. "Forget about answers for now," he said. His face had set in the particular stubborn lines that Draco remembered seeing when he had confronted Harry in the past about risking his life for insane reasons. "I'm more worried about what this will do to you. How can you torture someone without losing your soul? How can you do it without corrupting yourself?"

Draco rolled his eyes. He really shouldn't have called what he was doing torture if he wanted Harry to listen, he realized. Still, that didn't mean he was the only one to blame here. Harry had always been irrational about certain small things. "Listen, Harry," he said, and hoped that his voice didn't shake with fury or exasperation. "I'm not worried about some kind of nameless, faceless, abstract corruption. You've already faced corruption that's fairly strong and definable, and you haven't succumbed to it. Can't you trust that I can do the same thing, use the Dark Arts but not give in to them? Whatever giving in means," he had to add, because that was one thing most of the books he'd read had no idea about. Either they approved the use of the Dark Arts as just another tool in a wizard's arsenal or they hinted at dire consequences and never explained what those dire consequences were. Draco had tried for years to find a book that described the "horrible fates" of Dark wizards, in vain. Most of the time, the horrible fate seemed to be Aurors.

"It's not the magic," Harry said. "I'll acknowledge that you can do the Dark Arts if I can do necromancy, and still walk away unscathed. But causing pain…" He shook his head. "What kind of person will that make you?"

Draco sighed. "A sensible one?" Harry's mouth tightened, and Draco decided he would probably have a shouting match on his hands in a minute if he didn't try to treat this a _little _more seriously. He lowered his voice again and did his best to make it persuasive. "One who knows exactly what he's doing and why. One who knows what he's responsible for. And I'm sure that you'll stay beside me and tell me if you see me going too far, Harry." This time, he could make his smile genuine, considering the methods he thought Harry would probably resort to to tell him that. "This isn't a lightly-made decision."

"But the Dark Arts—" Harry began.

"Dearborn was right about one thing," Draco said forcefully. "What spells were declared Dark Arts depends a lot more on what the Ministry says and what the historical circumstances of the time were than anything else. There are harmless spells that someone didn't like because, say, they were the signature incantation of a political enemy, and so they were banned. Those political rivals are dead now and no one cares about their passions anymore, but we all have to suffer the consequences."

"I wasn't talking about the Ministry's definition," Harry said, his gaze direct and unflinching. It reminded Draco of the way he had looked in that final duel with Voldemort. "I'm talking about spells that are used to harm people. Those are what I'm calling Dark Arts, and those are what I don't want you using."

Draco tapped his fingers against his arm. "What do you call the spells the War Wizards use?" he asked, and hoped that his voice wasn't as taut with fury as his chest felt. Harry folded his arms and retreated a step anyway. "What about the spells that Ventus and I used in the battle against Nihil's army?"

"They're dead," Harry said. "I don't want you, or anyone, using spells that could hurt _living _people."

"We've already hurt Aran," Draco said, and his voice deepened into a growl. He didn't care. If Harry wanted to make this a fight, Draco would. He wasn't going to give up the chance to learn the answers that Aran and Nihil had been keeping to themselves for so long and which he didn't think they would have an opportunity of fighting the war without. "We learn spells in class every day that are meant to kill Dark wizards if there's no other option. Would it make you feel better if I gave Aran his wand back and let him fight me?"

"That's not the point," Harry said. "Don't be ridiculous."

"Then tell me what I should do instead, since you oppose this course of action." Draco clasped his hands together so that he wouldn't strike out at Harry. He loved him, he _did_, but he didn't love these principles that bound Harry like chains and that he would try to wind around other people at the most inconvenient times. "What I'm doing is only different in a few essentials from what we've already done and you had no qualms about. And since we're not about to release Aran _or _turn him over to the instructors right now, then I need to know what we _can _do, Arbiter of Justice."

Harry's teeth were grinding together, if the sound Draco heard from behind his closed lips was any indication. "I don't want to restrict what you can do," he said. Draco snorted, and Harry flicked him an irritated glance as sharp as a whip. "That's not—I want to restrict the illegal and dangerous things you can do," he said. "I'm sure that you're familiar with the impulse, since you keep me from trying to risk my life."

_Ah, so that's it. _Draco stepped towards Harry and leaned in towards his ear. By now, Weasley and Granger were staring at them with avid curiosity, obviously wanting to know what they were talking about. Ventus continued to watch Aran and ignore them, which made Draco more grateful to know her.

"There's something you should know about me," Draco whispered. "I thought you already did. Why, I'm not sure. But you don't know, so I'm going to tell you now, and I want you to always remember it."

Harry narrowed his eyes and nodded. Draco could feel the tension hovering in the air between them, and licked his lips. He knew the best way of solving that tension, but it was hardly possible with Harry's friends in the room and a prisoner to interrogate.

"I don't care about as many people as you do," Draco said. "The ones who are important to me, the ones I want to protect, are the people I love." He rested his hand on Harry's arm and hoped the weight, if not the words, would emphasize what category Harry was in. "That means that I don't care about the abstractions in the way that you do, or the faceless mass of people that you were willing to die to save. I wanted the world saved, but that was because my parents and I lived in it, not because I cared about everyone else."

Harry's face went white, while his lips clamped down so hard Draco honestly thought he would break some teeth. Then he whispered, "That can't be true, or why did you keep from identifying me when the Snatchers brought me to Malfoy Manor?"

"Because I thought you were the means to saving people I loved," Draco said. "Why else?"

Harry looked away from him, half-shut his eyes, and shook his head. "No. That can't be right. I know that you're a better person than you think you are. I know you care more about principles than you say you do."

Draco sighed in disgust. "And there you are again. Why does caring about the abstract motivations behind someone's actions make you good? It makes you _Gryffindor, _and you're still locked into that mindset. But I'm not, and I'm going to use this spell, and others like it, to interrogate Aran, and you'll have to fight me to stop me."

For a moment, he thought it was going to happen. Harry tensed, his shoulders rippling, and stared at Draco. His face had some color back. Draco waited for his hand to dip into his pocket and grab his wand. That would be the beginning of a serious duel, and one he would have to pay attention to, as much as he wanted the interrogation to be over right now.

But then Harry turned away and dropped his head, his fists clenching. Draco nodded. "Thank you for admitting that some of your rules have to yield to practicality," he said, and turned back to Aran, already considering what spell he should call on next.

* * *

Harry watched from the corner of one eye as Draco lifted his wand again and Aran crouched down, both hands splaying in front of his face despite the chokehold it put on his neck as the ropes pulled tight. His face was blank, his eyes looking flat with fear. Harry felt his throat ache, and wondered if he should move forwards and stop it.

His conscience said yes. His sense of practicality and his loyalty to his friends and Draco, the part of him that was tired of fighting endlessly and receiving no answers, told him to stay still and see what would happen. Perhaps it wouldn't be anything too bad.

_Since when is torture not anything too bad?_

Harry ground his teeth. The hell of it was, he didn't have a better plan for getting the answers out of Nihil, or at least out of someone Nihil had possessed, assuming Aran had ever existed independently of him.

To distract himself, he studied Aran, wondering why the man was so different from what he remembered of him. That Aran had been cool, self-possessed, in love with the sound of his own voice. That man had confronted Harry for a few minutes in the corridor, when he had first cast the spell and continued to move forwards despite Harry's taking away his wand and attacking him. But after that, he had acted childish and helpless, and that was continuing at the moment.

_Why?_

"Yes," Draco said, as if agreeing with someone invisible who had given him advice, and then brought down his wand in a swift slashing motion. Aran strained up against the ropes and cried out at the same moment.

Harry stared at his leg, where the pain seemed focused, if the way Aran's muscles twitched and spasmed was any indication. There was no cut there, or bruising, or signs that the blood had stopped flowing. And yet, Harry had no doubt that the spell Draco had cast was responsible for the pain Aran experienced.

"_Finite Incantatem!_" Hermione cried out.

Nothing happened. Aran leaned forwards to clutch his leg, and gagged as the ropes pulled tight. But his whimpers were fading now, and he stared at Draco with frank fascination, the way a mouse might look at a snake.

"Stop it!" Hermione said, whirling to face Draco and holding her wand towards him this time, as if she were going to stab him through the eye with it. Draco acted as if he didn't see her, but Harry knew he did, and from the way he was tensing, he was prepared to do something about it. "You can't hurt someone like this and not expect there to be consequences!"

"I've already had this discussion with Harry," Draco said, his voice was flat as Aran's expression. "I have no interest in it with you." He looked at Aran, and his lips twisted into a small, cruel smile that Harry had only seen echoes of on his face during the time they were in Hogwarts. "Besides, these particular consequences are the ones we want."

Harry looked. Aran was shaking his head back and forth, gargling on desperate words in his throat. "Please, no more," Harry made out after a moment, whispered over and over as if the repetition would be enough to keep him from pain. "Please, no more."

Draco smiled at Hermione, who had her hands to her mouth and looked as if she were going to be sick. Then he knelt down next to Aran and said, almost tenderly, "I can stop it. But for it to stop, you have to tell us everything you know. About Nihil. About what it means that you're a part of him and can resist Veritaserum. About anyone else you know in the Ministry who is connected to him or infected by him. Do you understand?"

Aran looked at him with something that Harry thought you could call filthy gratitude, and nodded excitedly. "I don't know everything, but I know much," he said. "What you have to understand is that I am only a part of him. I know as much of him as he allows me to see, as much as I had to so that I could keep working for him."

"And you have his fears," Draco said, smiling into Aran's eyes and stroking his wand. "Unless you were tortured, yourself?"

Aran closed his eyes and shook his head.

Draco rocked back on his heels, gave a triumphant glance at everyone in the room, and then turned back to Aran. "What does it mean to say that you're a part of Nihil? We had thought he was one person, and although we know now that he can't be killed as readily as we thought he could, losing a body still takes him out of the immediate area. Doesn't it?"

Aran sighed. Some color was returning to his face, and Harry tried, unsuccessfully, to convince himself that that meant what had happened was all right. "No. Nihil is more like a great plant, with many roots extending under the ground and surfacing in unexpected places. I am one of the blossoms of those roots. Daffyd Dearborn was another, at least after he became part of Nihil. Like him, I can act on my own and possess my own opinions and enough of my former personality to fool those who need to be fooled. But I am ultimately under his control and answerable to him."

"Then won't he kill you when he finds out what you told us?" Hermione blurted out.

Aran gave her a thin smile full of pity. "No. He cannot _kill_ me. He can reabsorb me, pull me back into himself, and he may do that. But he ordered me to destroy your gift for necromancy." He looked at Harry, and there was nothing gleeful in his eyes or his face. He might have been speaking of being ordered simply to kill Harry. "He fears what could happen if someone who knows his secrets and has a talent for it faces him on the battlefield."

Harry swallowed. "And you resented his orders," he guessed, remembering the things Aran had said as he was attacking Harry. "You wanted to just kill me or knock me unconscious and get rid of me that way."

"Yes," Aran said indifferently. "He has an obsession with you that I think quite unnatural. There are other ways to accomplish his goals than by taking you and corrupting you, or taking you and using your fame to his own ends. And he has the same obsession with you," he added, turning to look at Draco.

Draco let out a huff of breath and his eyes widened, but Harry knew him too well to be fooled by the pallor of his face. He was flattered and trying not to show it. "Why me?" Draco asked. "I don't have much in the way of fame to offer, except the notoriety that would make people back away from me instead of helping me."

"You were a Death Eater," Aran said. His voice remained indifferent. He was looking over their heads into a corner of the ceiling now, as though he were counting the moments until Nihil came and reclaimed him. Harry wondered what would that look like, when it happened—if it happened. "Or your father was. Either was good enough for him. He thought that you might know secrets that would help. And of course you might know Dark Arts, or have access to books, that he didn't. And he's obsessed with that kind of magic. Since it was used against him, he wants to make a weapon of it."

"He's always reacted like that, hasn't he?" Harry asked, remembering the vision that had flashed in his head, the strength of Caradoc's desire to cause pain to the people who had harmed him. "If someone does something to him, then he has to respond in exactly the same way if he can."

Aran nodded, and he wore a faint smile this time. "You are beginning to understand how his mind works. If you can call it a mind. If someone who is human can understand something that truly is not." He paused, seeming to muse for a moment before he continued. "He is incapable of understanding anyone as an ally or friend, of course, which limits him in his own way. You are resources to him."

Harry shivered. Nusquam had said something like that. He reckoned he was glad he hadn't comprehended it fully before; it would have discouraged him as they struggled to fight against Nihil.

"What does Nihil _want_?" Draco asked.

"Aren't Nemo and Nusquam his allies?" Hermione asked at the same time.

Aran answered Draco first, his voice tired. "The clue is in his name. Indeed, he has told everyone who cared to know about him the truth from the first day, but people rarely follow the clue back to its beginning."

"He wants nothing?" Draco said. He raked his hands through his hair. "That makes no sense, not when he's been striving so hard after _something_, and he clearly wants to bring down the Ministry and destroy Harry and me."

"He wants to reduce the world to nothingness," Aran said, with a faint bite to his words that Harry suspected was as close as he could come to impatience at the moment. "Himself included. He cannot die. He can change bodies, but he is always the same in the core of himself, with the same driving purpose. Indeed, the extensions of him who have some free will, such as the man you called Dearborn and I, are often happier than he is. We can forget the pain for a time, the memories." He shuddered and glared at Draco. "Until something brings it back again."

Harry shivered. "And he doesn't care who or what he has to crush to do it, does he?" he asked.

Aran shook his head. "He didn't strike for years after the first war because he was trying all the various magical methods available to him of forgetting. Nothing worked. So if the world is destroyed, and there's no scrape of matter left for him to animate or escape into when his last body is killed, then he figures he'll have oblivion and peace at last."

"That's insane," Ron said, blankly. Bleakly. Harry glanced at his best friend and saw him standing with his arms folded, his eyes wide.

"To someone human, yes," Aran said.

"What about Nemo and Nusquam?" Hermione insisted. "Were they normal people that he possessed, too? How does he possess people? Are they his allies?"

"Nemo and Nusquam are his most independent tendrils, the first ones he created," Aran said. "Nusquam is the part of himself that has perfected their methods of travel, and Nemo works with the beasts. Nemo is less sophisticated than Nusquam and has a less stable appearance through his various transformations. As for the possession question, I can only try to tell you what I know of myself. Nihil appeared to me in the guise of Daffyd Dearborn and flashed that onyx ring he was always carrying at me. The infection travels by light. When I saw it, I felt something change within me. The infection acted differently than it does in those people, such as you, whom Nihil wanted to leave alone until he could figure out how to use them. It ate away everything I was, and left me as this."

There was silence. Even Draco looked more somber than he had been, and Harry wrapped his arms around himself and wondered if the others were thinking the same thing he was.

_How in the world are we going to fight this?_

Then he saw Draco lifting his head again and staring at him as if daring Harry, silently, with his eyes, to give in. Harry began to smile back in spite of himself.

_There's a way. We'll find it._

_Although, Draco, please, it has to be a different way than yours._


	35. Movement

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Thirty-Five—Movement_

"If you are resistant to Veritaserum, then why should we trust that you're telling the truth?" Hermione interrupted suddenly.

Harry turned his head to look at her, startled out of the cocoon of somber thought that had settled around him. Hermione had her arms folded and her eyes squinting, as if she could see the secrets hiding inside Aran's head if she looked hard enough. Draco glanced slowly back and forth between her and Aran, eyes lidded so that Harry couldn't tell what he was thinking.

"There's no guarantee, of course." Aran rubbed the back of his hand across his mouth. "But Nihil's left me enough independence that I can decide what I say and how much to give you. I was never his tendril. I had my own life before he ate it. I don't remember much of that life now—just what I needed to know to fool the people around me, most of whom hadn't seen me in years—but I remember the eating, and I resent it." His eyes gave a feverish flash.

"That's the reason that you seem so different now from when we had you in class," Harry said suddenly, as pieces clicked together in his mind. "You were behaving the way Nihil told you that you had to, to avoid suspicion, but now you're acting the way you want."

Aran nodded. "I was never that aloof. And I would not have made the offer to tutor you if Nihil hadn't wanted me to keep an eye on you and report any extraordinary leaps forwards."

"What about anyone else in the Ministry?" Hermione said, her voice so harsh that Harry suspected she considered _his_ tangent to be little more than a waste of time. "Is there anyone else whom you know is infected?"

Aran shook his head. "We can't recognize each other at a glance. We're taught to act together only when he commands it, and not otherwise. I will say that I know Lowell and Weston aren't infected, because he wouldn't have sought _you _two out for your compatible magic—" he jerked his head at Harry and Draco "—if he already had a pair. And he tried to take Portillo Lopez, but he couldn't get into her head."

Harry nodded as if that wasn't news to him, wondering if the tattoo that Portillo Lopez and the rest of her Order carried on their skin protected them against such attacks.

"And Gregory wasn't infected, either," Aran added. "But she was coming close to discovering his secrets—she suspected Dearborn—and had to be taken out. I know that her name kept returning to his mind more and more often lately, but I don't know why. We can hear some of the outer echoes of his thoughts when they're especially intense, like overhearing something on the wireless from another room. We can't hear everything, though."

Draco stepped in to take control of the conversation again. "What happened to Gregory?"

Aran grinned sourly. "If he'd found her or knew, he wouldn't be so worried."

"Can she do that much against him, though?" Hermione sounded thoughtful. "She's a single person, and even though she was Combat instructor here, I can't imagine that she would have a lot of contacts outside the Ministry. All she would have had to do was go through the training program and then demonstrate enough talent to teach others once she was an Auror."

"What she has is something worse than that," Aran said. "Hatred, implacable hatred, for someone who forced her away from her job. Paranoia and observation skills enough to suspect that something was wrong with Dearborn. Deter—"

He broke off abruptly, coughing. Harry started forwards, wondering if the ropes were choking him again, but then Aran threw back his head in silent agony, his face turning black.

Harry stopped, drawing his wand, and cast his most powerful Shield Charm in front of him. He knew what this was.

Aran's whole body, or at least the visible skin around his robes, also turned black. He thrashed in the robes, hard, taking heavy gasping breaths, and then began to rock in place. His muscles bulged and rippled weirdly. Hermione tried to help him, but Harry cast another Shield Charm that kept her back like cage bars. He didn't want any of his friends being touched by the thing eating Aran.

Aran gave a final thrash, and then his whole body exploded into black pulpy fragments, decorated with flying blood and thick white liquid that Harry didn't think usually came out of living humans. Hermione cried out in disgust, and Ventus surged forwards beside Harry, casting another spell. It was a good thing she had, as the black fragments rose over Harry's Shield Charm. Ventus's complicated incantation opened a pair of jaws made of fire, which ate the fragments and then appeared to smirk before fading.

Nothing was left clinging to the ropes except a few traces of blood and the white liquid. Hermione used her wand to conjure a vial and then a spell to scoop some of the white liquid off the ropes. It looked like heavy cheese, and Harry shivered and glanced away. Meanwhile, Ventus burnt the ropes, ignoring the angry exclamations from Hermione and Ron.

"It's too dangerous," she said calmly. "Who knows what could infect us if we touched them?" She turned around and swept her glance over them as if she were counting their teeth through their skin. "And it is perfectly obvious that we are not going to reveal Aran's death to the instructors. I would protect my comitatus even from themselves if necessary."

Harry stood where his Shield Charm had left him, staring at the place Aran had been. He felt frozen. One moment the man had been alive, doing what he could to help them, apparently, even if that cost him his life—

And then it had.

_If you can call that life, _Harry thought, rubbing his face. _And for all we know, maybe Nihil has taken his spirit away and is going to put it in another body. I don't know if the people he infects become immortal in the same way as the parts of him._

"There's so much that we don't know," Draco said reflectively, as if hearing and echoing Harry's thoughts. "But I think we can get the answers if we continue to work for them. And we have some that we can use."

Harry turned to look at him. Draco leaned his arm along the back of the chair where Ventus had sat and smiled at the lot of them. His smile was more cheerful and less cold than Harry would have thought it could be, so soon after he had tortured someone and then seen that same person die.

"That was horrible," Hermione whispered.

"It was," Draco agreed. "But it gives us valuable advice. It tells us that Nihil is even stranger than we thought, but not as powerful. The people he conquers retain some independence. Maybe even Dearborn was more independent than we thought he was, because he wasn't the same person as the one who went hunting his brother." Harry looked at the floor for a moment, because he thought that was something Draco would sincerely like to believe in rather than something that was true, and he didn't want Draco to see his pity. "And we know that there are others who are fighting him, people we might be able to join up with."

He looked at Harry, cocking his head. "And we know that torture works against Nihil's minions, and might work against Nihil himself."

Harry couldn't let that pass, but raising the moral argument against it so soon after he'd lost it wouldn't make Draco listen. He lifted his head, looked Draco in the eye, and said, "All right. So what's next?"

"We try to make contact with Gregory," Draco said calmly. "We keep attending classes as if nothing had happened, and look for other people we might be able to make contact with, And we see if we can identify anyone who's infected, a tendril of Nihil, or someone who might be able to tell us the truth, like Aran did."

"We can't just _not tell _them anything," Hermione said, looking more and more distressed. "The instructors will want to know where Aran went."

"Then let them ask." Draco turned away with a dismissive little motion of his hand. "When the instructors do find information, such as what Pushkin discovered from his experiments on Nemo's beasts, they don't _use _it. All they do is push it into the background and then pretend that nothing happened. I think they want the War Wizards to handle this, badly enough that they won't fight no matter what we give them."

"But one of their own being infected—"

"They thought Gregory was infected last year," Draco said, craning his neck around to stare haughtily at Hermione. "And they still didn't try to do much about it after she fled."

"How could they, when they didn't know where she went?" Hermione asked, but her voice was low. She sighed and stared at her hands. "So who's going to do what?"

Draco gave them the instructions. Ron sometimes frowned, but he showed no more sign of resentment than that. Harry shook his head. He wondered how in the world Ventus could have seen that Draco had the gift of leadership before the rest of them. He had thought he knew Draco better than anyone else, but that had been proven wrong even before Ventus started to make her claims. Harry had jumped into "love" with him and still not realized some of his most basic talents or principles.

_Like his talent for torturing people. Or not caring about people except those he loves._

As Harry thought about it, though, a knot of tension in his shoulders relaxed. Draco had said that he only cared about saving the world because of his family, but he had become an Auror without reference to that. The Ministry wasn't threatening the Malfoys right now, and would have only if they became aware of Lucius's escape. And the people Draco would be protecting wouldn't be only his family.

_He has depths that he hasn't thought of. He has motivations that he might not understand._

When Draco glanced at him as if testing whether anyone was going to complain about his orders, Harry had the ability to smile back.

* * *

Draco leaned against the wall and shut his eyes. He knew he was in trouble if someone passed by, but he didn't think anyone would. The instructors had vanished into Portillo Lopez's office for their private meeting half an hour ago, and based on the meetings they'd been having lately, especially about Aran, they wouldn't be out any time soon. Draco had the ability to pierce the eavesdropping wards they'd raised and hear what they were saying—if he could only do it without being detected.

He breathed until he was centered in himself, and refused to think of all the secrets he might be losing, which might pass by him and sail into the darkness. The instructors couldn't know that much, or Draco would have caught hints of it during the Fellowship meetings. And he and Harry and the rest were in a better position of knowledge than they were, since they were in on the secret of Aran, among other things.

_If they don't know much, why are you so desperate to overhear?_

It was the sort of question Granger would have asked. Draco grinned sourly at the thought that she was part of his mental array of qualities now, and drew his wand as he gave the silent answer.

_Because we know more about Nihil, but they know more about Ministry politics, Auror politics, and sheer training. Not individual spells, but the way that training works with all the subjects and connects them. They know more about being Aurors. _

_And I think we'll need to be Aurors to fight Nihil._

The spells to get around the eavesdropping wards curved and flowed out of his mouth, as though he were slowly extracting a piece of liquid silver. Draco kept his eyes closed as he chanted, trusting to his ears to warn him of anyone's approach and the Disillusionment Charm he had on to render him invisible enough to fool casual observers. He would have used a few of the more powerful protective spells that Granger had found in the library, but there were none that wouldn't set off the wards surrounding the room where the instructors met.

The chant finished. Draco opened his eyes and waited. Had he succeeded? The instructors' voices should start coming to his ears in a minute, if so.

"—don't know what we can expect a crowd of trainees to do!" Lowell's words were sudden, loud, and right in his ear.

Draco controlled his reaction with nothing more than a slight gasp. He hadn't actually broken through wards like this before, and so hadn't realized that the natural sound of their voices would startle him so.

"Hush," Weston said. No more than that, but Draco could almost feel Lowell relax. They complemented each other very well, Draco thought. He hoped that he and Harry might learn to do that someday.

"They will be part of the Ministry's line of defense, should Nihil attack us again." Portillo Lopez, her voice much calmer and deeper than Draco had heard it in some time. Of course, he hadn't had her for classes this year. "I think it worthwhile for them to know how to defend themselves. They didn't when Nihil came hunting at the end of last year, or it was not adequate, and some of them were wounded who should not have been."

"Of course you pay more attention to the wounded than we do." Davidson. Draco heard a creak and shuffle that was probably her leaning forwards in her chair. "But we cannot allow concern for their safety _alone _to dictate what we do. We are running a program here. They will be Aurors someday, and there are things they need to know that we can't excuse them from knowing. We have to think beyond the war."

"No," Ketchum said, his voice almost a bray after Davidson's cool, elegant words. Draco rolled his eyes, and didn't know if he was rolling them at Ketchum or at his own prejudices. "This is an enemy who stands a good chance of defeating us if we think that way. I agree with Portillo Lopez. Let's get the trainees through the war, and then we can start picking the ones who would only make good soldiers and not good Aurors out of the mix. But we need to worry about surviving to see the future, and making sure they survive, before we worry about vague and nebulous consequences. They're our charges. We should act like it."

"We're here to train them—" Davidson began.

"To live," said a voice that was probably Morningstar's. Draco could almost picture the smile she would be wearing, the same one she used when someone whom he'd underestimated threw him across the room in Combat class. "We thought they needed one set of skills in order to do that. It turns out they need another. We'll adapt. We'll teach them to adapt. And we can change things back after the war. The Auror program will survive."

There was silence, as if that announcement carried more weight than Draco knew. He braced himself with one boot against the wall, leaning as close to the door as he dared, trying to hold his breath. If someone spoke more quietly, or gave the reason for the silence, he wanted to be sure he heard.

"I'm not sure," Lowell murmured. "When I think of how young they are, some of them, and struggling with the set of skills we want them to learn _now_…"

"We'll make it," Weston said. Her voice had clear affection in it, and Draco could imagine her stroking Lowell's arm. "We always do."

"But will _they _make it?" A creak and a rustle as Lowell shifted in his seat. "That's what I'm worried about."

"I think they will," Ketchum said, "if we turn all our abilities to making sure they do so." There was a stomp and slide of boots, and Draco was sure that he had risen to his feet. "And I'm more than willing to admit, my friends, that we were wrong if this doesn't work. But I think it's clear by now that simply doing as we have done is no way to counter Nihil. We should try something different. If that works out horribly after the war, well." He blew out a harsh breath that sounded as if he had used up all the air in his body. "At least there will still be Aurors to try and solve the problem."

Silence, and then Portillo Lopez said, "I stand with Samwise."

"And I."

"And I."

One by one, the voices of the instructors affirmed a decision that Draco could understand the general outlines of, if not all the details. They had just chosen to try and teach their trainees, including him and Harry, skills that would actually matter to the battle against Nihil—perhaps milder versions of the spells the War Wizards used, perhaps something else.

It didn't matter. Whatever it was, Draco could feel his heart bounding along, and he had a level of respect for the instructors he hadn't possessed an hour before. (Which still didn't mean that he was about to tell them about Aran. If there were infected ones among them, they had probably been coerced into agreeing by the rest).

They wouldn't hide their eyes in the sand and pretend there wasn't a war on, as the Ministry was prone to doing too often. They would move faster. Draco might learn things that would enable him to save Harry's life, or his parents' lives, or his own.

They were moving.

* * *

"Block this." Lowell's voice was soft, and he stepped towards Harry with an extravagant gesture, as if he assumed that Harry wouldn't see him coming otherwise.

Harry grimaced and braced himself. His wand was on the far side of the large training room, under Weston's careful guard, but Draco stood at Harry's back. He _should _be able to cast the Shield Charm that he would need to defeat Lowell through Draco's wand—always assuming that he had mastered the skill sufficiently. Of course, Lowell and Weston thought he and Draco had spent time practicing that they had spent foiling Nihil instead.

For the first time, Harry felt a squirming bit of guilt at having fooled their teachers. Draco's news had made Hermione beam and Ron nod and Ventus look interested—she had said it was "about time" that the Auror instructors had started giving them "a real education"—but it had made Harry feel worse. They had disdained the help of people who had turned out to be a bit sensible after all.

_But is there anything that doesn't increase your guilt? _he thought in Draco's voice, and then shook his head and focused his eyes on Lowell. It was time to start thinking about what mattered in this particular moment.

"_Vinco!_" snarled Lowell.

Harry was already in motion, reaching out to his "sense" of Draco that he had started cultivating, and envisioning the hawthorn wand in his mind as hard as he could. He had held it _this _way when he used it to duel Death Eaters, and _this _way when he was casting healing charms with it, and—

A cold wind seemed to blow down his spine. His mind expanded as if a door had been thrown open. He felt himself lifting on invisible wings, riding the surge of compatible magic that raced towards Draco and dived into his wand.

Harry had never done this before. It was terrifying, exhilarating, addictive. He found himself breathing hard, his eyes shut as his chest struggled. And yet he could still see, including the yellow light of the spell bounding towards him, and Draco's tense face, and the wand lying on the floor, innocent, supposedly, of any danger.

"_Protego!"_

Squeezing the Shield Charm out of the end of the wand was the hardest thing he had ever done. It felt as if he were squeezing it out of _himself_, weaving it of blood and flesh and skin. His muscles shuddered, and Harry felt a sudden hardness against his back. He was sure he had fallen to the floor. His odd, doubled sight of the room went dark, and when he opened his eyes he immediately turned his head.

A Shield Charm hovered shimmering between him and Lowell, holding back the yellow spell, which crackled and dissolved.

Lowell nodded, panted, and gave Harry a smile. "Good," he said. "If not quite to the point where you should be."

"Give them a chance to prove themselves again," Weston said, predictably. "At least the barrier between them has finally dissolved."

Harry nodded enthusiastically, hoping Lowell would agree with her and otherwise leave them alone. The barrier _had_ faded, probably because he had finally shared the secret of his necromancy with Draco. That was progress, wasn't it? And that meant Lowell had no reason to stare at them with hooded eyes like that.

Draco came forwards shaking the hawthorn wand as if it burned him. "It's a strange sensation," he complained, "having someone else cast through your wand."

"It is less strange for you than it would be for many others, since you have the compatible magic," Lowell promptly began, turning to lecture Draco. "Of course, if you did not have the compatible magic, you would not be able to perform the feat at all…"

Draco nodded solemnly in response to Lowell's lecture, while catching Harry's eye to mouth _You're welcome. _Harry smiled and sat up, then made his way to his feet, rubbing his back. He'd hit hard when he fell. His back throbbed in time with his head.

Then his headache became more persistent.

Harry noticed his fingers were cold when he reached up to touch his forehead. The skin there felt stretched and tight around the scar, though the scar, contrary to what he thought he felt for a single panicked second, wasn't burning. Then the numbness surged up through his hand to his heart, and his vision blurred at the edges.

He knew in an instant what was happening, though the symptoms were worse than before. He was about to have another vision, courtesy of Nihil.

Draco already seemed to have sensed something wrong and was turning towards him, eyes narrowed. That attracted the attention of Lowell, who stopped his lecture and faced Harry as well. Weston took a few quick steps forwards and was at his side, one arm firmly around Harry's shoulders, as if she assumed that he would try to escape.

"What is happening?" Weston's voice was sharper, softer than Lowell's, and accompanied by the jab of a wand into Harry's side.

"I don't know," Harry responded truthfully, ending in a gasp. He didn't know what caused him to be connected to Nihil, other than the fact that they had both practiced necromancy—but then why wasn't Nihil connected to other necromancers? Portillo Lopez hadn't said anything about this.

There was a buzzing in his ears. He couldn't feel his hands. Through the buzzing a voice began to call, softly, endlessly. Harry had the feeling that he didn't know want to know what it was saying.

"Harry!" Draco, from a distance.

Darkness. Cold. The call.

And then Harry opened his eyes to find himself somewhere entirely different.


	36. Once a Friend

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Thirty-Six—Once a Friend_

Harry stared around him, trying not to lick his lips or flinch or show any other sign of nervousness. The room that he stood in—if it was a room and not a cave—was made entirely of stone, with curved walls that hugged the floor. Harry couldn't see any windows, and the shadow that perhaps hid a door over to the side was too deep for him to be sure if anything _was _there. A torch burned on the wall, filling the room with less light than inky smoke.

In front of him was Catherine Arrowshot, her eyes tightly shut. She was chained to the floor, a pair of heavy manacles linking her wrists together and her legs folded beneath her as if the chains weighed too much for her to stand up under. A steady stream of whimpers escaped her mouth. Something strange had been done to the shape of her jaw, Harry thought. Perhaps someone had beaten her.

The thought outraged him, despite the fact that she might have gone with Nihil willingly, and he leaned forwards. "Are you all right?" he asked urgently. "Can I help you?"

Arrowshot's eyes opened and she turned her head, but her wide, blank eyes looked past him. "Who's there?" she whispered." I can hear you. Your voice is familiar. Where are you?"

"Right here," Harry said. He had started to tell her his name, but he didn't think that was the wisest thing in the world, just in case she _was _a traitor or Nihil could force her to tell the truth. "I don't think I'm really here." He had just looked down and seen that his feet were transparent where they rested on the floor. "Can I do anything to help?"

"I don't know," Arrowshot whispered back. Her head had sagged as if she hated to hear the fact that he wasn't really there, and now it turned restlessly back and forth. Her hands opened and shut in helpless little grasping motions. Harry swallowed another burst of anger when he saw the red lines that crisscrossed her palms, the marks of whips or fire. "I need someone to free me, and how can you do that if you can't touch anything?"

"I don't know," Harry admitted. "But is there anything—"

And then he could have smacked himself, because of course there was something he could do for her that would at least comfort her if not precisely help her, and help them at the same time.

"What can you tell me about Nihil?" he asked. "I'm trying to destroy him. I could at least get revenge on him for you."

Arrowshot jerked as though someone had shot her with a Stinging Hex. Then she looked up and shook her head back and forth, eyes searching past the point where Harry stood. "Are you mad? No one can destroy him."

"I know what he is," Harry said. "Or part of what he is. And I know that you vanished from the Auror training barracks when he did. Did you join him willingly?"

Arrowshot laughed wildly. Blood flecked her lips. "Do you think he would do this to me if I had?"

"I've seen him destroy people who were sworn to him," Harry said. "The fact is that he's not human, and what he might do if he's angry, I can't really understand. That's what I'm trying to find out, and that's where you can help me."

Arrowshot closed her eyes. "He got a hook in my soul," she said. "When I got close to him during the battle. And he grabbed hold of me when he vanished with the rest of them, the people sworn to him and corrupted by him. Then I woke up and found myself here."

"Where is here?" Harry asked, his heart soaring now that he could tell Draco one of the first friends he had tried to make besides Harry wasn't really a traitor.

"I don't know," Arrowshot said. "A fortress of some kind. A cave. He keeps me here always, and makes experiments. I think he's pulling my soul to pieces one by one, but I don't know what he does with them."

Harry shuddered. "Has he ever mentioned anything about Horcruxes?"

Arrowshot shook her head. "Or, he did, once, but he said something about them being a coward's tool, and he didn't think they would work." Her forehead wrinkled. "I didn't understand what he meant."

Harry relaxed with a sigh. Come to think of it, given what Nihil was, and so steeped in death, Harry wasn't sure that Horcruxes would have worked for him at all, or whether he had a soul of his own that he could have split. "Is there any chance of you escaping? Have you heard any rumors about people opposing Nihil who could help you?"

"No one opposes Nihil," Arrowshot whispered. "No one here. Out there are people, but they would think that I had come here on purpose and wouldn't try to help me." Yearning stained her voice. "Are you really going to try?"

"I promise, yes," Harry said, and he did, although he didn't know what he could do right now. "I'm still trying to figure out how I got here myself."

"You surely Apparated," said Arrowshot, and then frowned. "I thought you were under a Disillusionment Charm, but you're not, are you?"

Harry shook his head, then realized that couldn't do any good. "No," he said aloud. "As far as I know, I was—at home, where I always am, and then my hands and face got numb and I came here."

"It's like the ghosts of the unicorns," Arrowshot said unexpectedly.

Harry started. He hadn't forgotten those phantoms at the edge of the Forbidden Forest, staring at him and trying to call him to account, but he hadn't been able to make them fit in with the picture that he was creating of Nihil, and had been unsure of what exactly he should do with them. Their refusal to appear a second time also contributed to push them fairly far down his list of problems, he had to admit. "You know about them?"

"_He's _talked about them, sometimes." Arrowshot's voice was full of hate and fear. She folded her arms around her legs and bowed her head so that her face rested against her knees. "I don't know where they come from, but apparently they've appeared in the cave and walked up and down. He has no control of them, and they won't serve him or vanish when he tries to make them. He said something once about stirring and reversal, but I don't know what that means." She paused. "Are you a necromancer, too?"

_That _knowledge, Harry wasn't about to trust outside their comitatus; he would have kept it even from Ventus if he hadn't been absolutely forced to reveal it. "I'm sorry, but I don't think so," he said, and hoped his strained smile and regret would come through in his voice.

"Oh." Arrowshot paused again. "I don't know what to do," she said in a low voice. "Sometimes I dream about Gregory coming and rescuing me. Nihil talks about her. But I don't know any _details._" Her voice was thick with longing.

Harry hesitated. He didn't think it could do any harm to give her this information, since Nihil must have already mentioned it in her presence. "Gregory is still somewhere out there, fighting. Nihil can't corner her, and he worries about her."

"Does he really?" Arrowshot lifted her head, and hope came back into her eyes. Harry smiled, but a darker part of him, which he seemed to have acquired along with the shimmer in the back of his head, wondered if that had been kind. The longer hope took to die, the more of a victim she would make for Nihil. "That's—that's wonderful. _Wonderful._" Her voice shook and sank, and she stared at the wall with eyes of blind ecstasy.

Harry waited as long as he could before he decided that he should try one more time to see if he could learn useful information. "You really don't know anything about this place? Do you remember what happened when you came here?"

"I haven't been outside this room," Arrowshot said. "I don't even know if this is his main stronghold, the only one, or somewhere where he simply stories inconvenient prisoners. I don't think I'm _that _important to him." Bitterness had returned to her voice.

Harry made soothing motions with his hands, which of course she couldn't see, and then said, "I know. I know. But are you sure that you haven't heard him mention anything? If he talks about the unicorn ghosts and Gregory, maybe he said something about this, too, thinking that you would be too cowed to turn it against him."

"He laughs sometimes about it," said Arrowshot, and Harry could hear the bitterness in that, too. He wondered for a moment what it would be like to be held captive by Nihil, away from Draco, away from his friends, away from anyone who could help him, and taunted relentlessly by the man—being—whatever he was—all the while. His respect for Arrowshot increased; she had been through this and yet managed to stand it. "He says that he's living in the home and heart of his enemies, where they'll never look for him." She hissed. "But I don't know what that _means!_"

"I do," Harry said, his heart abruptly beating faster and a lightness flooding his chest. "I do. Thank you, Arrowshot."

She stared at him. "You do? Well, tell me! Is it something that can help you free me?"

Harry started to answer, but cried out as a constricting band seemed to close around his chest, destroying the lightness. He staggered and put a hand to his heart, then around his neck. It felt as if someone was dragging him backwards, away from Arrowshot, in the direction of something that he didn't want to touch.

_Nihil found me._

That had to be it, but all he could really see at the moment was Arrowshot growing smaller and dimmer in front of him, while she called out anxiously, "Are you still there? Where did you go? Hullo!"

* * *

Draco was not amused.

He had spent the last ten minutes shouting into Harry's motionless face, conjuring water to dump on him, pinching his ears, and casting hexes that ought to shock anyone out of unconsciousness. Lowell and Weston had done much the same thing, but stopped before he did and retreated to confer across the room. Draco knew that they would probably come to him soon, grim-faced, and tell him there was nothing to be done, that Harry was too far gone to be rescued.

But Draco kept it up because he had to, because Harry was his partner and he wasn't going to simply _abandon _him, and finally he thought to cast a spell and aim it at Harry with malicious intent, forcing the compatible magic into action.

Harry gasped and opened his eyes, flopping about on the floor like a fish someone had hooked. Draco didn't waste time; he immediately cast another Stinging Hex, one of the spells he had tried before, to keep Harry in the moment, and then reached out and pulled him into a ferocious embrace. His head was spinning with relief, and he felt as if he wanted to kiss Harry and slap him at the same time.

He actually hoped that Harry _didn't _recover too fast this time. He would otherwise see Draco looking starkly undignified.

Harry went on gasping so long that Draco began to worry that he had taken some kind of permanent damage to his lungs, though Draco wasn't sure what might have caused that. A fainting fit couldn't, surely…

But this had to be one of Nihil's attacks, and maybe he could torture a spirit who was away from the body, as it seemed Harry had been from the entirety of those ten minutes. Draco shuddered and clung tighter.

"Draco?" Harry finally whispered. His voice was weak, shaky, but it didn't matter, Draco thought, his arms once again tightening around Harry, until he thought he would break bones, either Harry's or his. It didn't _matter. _The only thing that mattered was that he had Harry back again, and this time he had no idea of relinquishing him. "What happened?"

"You lay on the ground without stirring for ten minutes, and then we called you back," Draco said. Lowell and Weston were hurrying towards them, stunned looks on their faces, so Draco raised his voice. "Well, _I _called you back. It seems that you couldn't resist the call of our compatible magic, no matter where you were. I didn't give up."

"Trainee Malfoy exaggerates the situation," Weston said, shaking her hair back behind her ears as if she imagined that would disguise her own relief. "We had not given up. We merely feared that you would not return."

Harry just raised an eyebrow at them and then faced Draco. Draco saw the flicker of his eyes, and knew immediately what was going to happen. Harry was about to lie, but he was trying to do it in such a way that Draco was the only one who would know about it.

That was intriguing. And Draco could agree that there were some things that Weston and Lowell shouldn't know about, even given the instructors' newfound commitment to usefulness (which probably wouldn't last that long). He settled back on his heels and prepared to help in any way he could.

"I was feeling weak and dizzy the other day, too," Harry said. "I think that practicing compatible magic sometimes drains me because of interaction with the curse scar." He gestured towards his forehead, as if Weston and Lowell could either possibly miss or not know what he was talking about. Draco gave him a glance that was meant to warn him against overacting, and Harry might have seen it, because he calmed his voice a bit. "We don't know why. But it happens most often after new magic or a long time of intense strain."

"In the future, Trainee Potter," Weston said, her voice less acid than Draco would have expected it to be, "perhaps you could _inform _us of things like this before we put you through an extended training session."

"I'll make sure to do so," Draco said at once, picking up his cue and taking his place in making the lie solid. "I would have done so, but Harry always insists that he's fine." Remember the times when Harry had hidden secrets from him or tried to ignore wounds made his glare sufficiently heated.

Harry blinked and lowered his head, hunching his shoulders in a convincing imitation of sullenness.

Lowell chuckled. "They are worse than we were at that age," he said to Weston. "At least we did not have to live with the legacy of a war and a madman. But do you remember what we were like?"

"How can I forget, when you continually remind me of it?" Weston snapped, but her eyes were so soft that Draco knew anyone who listened to her words alone would get the wrong impression from them.

Lowell smiled at her, and Draco decided that he and Harry might as well leave. Lowell and Weston had accepted their lie, and that was the important thing, the only thing they could do here. He heaved Harry to his feet. Harry stumbled but came, hanging more limply than Draco suspected he needed to.

"I'll take Harry back to our room and do what I can to make sure he's all right," he told Lowell and Weston. "Most of the time, he only needs some rest to recover from this, but if it's more than that, I'm the best one to take care of him."

Amazingly, neither Auror challenged his claim, which Draco had made mainly because he knew they would expect such a thing. They simply nodded and then faced each other, speaking in soft voices about things Draco didn't think mattered, if the looks of fond remembrance on their faces were any indication.

He manhandled Harry out of the room. Harry only permitted that until they were in the middle of the corridor that led to their barracks; then he shook off Draco's arm and began to walk on his own. At least he stayed close enough that Draco could resume the pretense in a moment if he needed to.

"What happened?" Draco asked.

Harry gave him a sidelong, amused glance. Draco scowled. He knew his voice had cracked like a whip with his impatience, but what of it? It _mattered _that he know what was happening, and Harry could be reticent unless one forced him to speak.

"I saw Catherine Arrowshot again," Harry said. "Not for a fleeting vision this time, but in a cave with a torch on the wall, chained to the floor. What's more, she could sense that I was there, if not see me, and spoke with me."

Draco licked his lips. "And Nihil? Did you see him? Did he sense you?" He hoped that he was keeping the fear out of his voice as he said that.

Harry shrugged. "I don't know. I didn't feel anything from him while I was there, but Arrowshot implied that she had been tortured for information, so I tried not to betray too much. She did say that she hadn't gone with him willingly; he put a 'hook into her soul,' she said, and dragged her along after the trainees."

"She could have been just saying that, or he could have told her to say that," Draco muttered, but he couldn't deny the relief that swept through him. He had wondered for a time, until he met Ventus, whether any friend he made was destined to abandon or betray him in some way.

_One could say that that's happened even with Harry._

"I agree," Harry said. "However, she did tell me one thing that I don't think Nihil would have wanted revealed. He was laughing about making his home in the homes of his enemies. I think he's using the Death Eater caches—not just as places to give him weapons and information about the Death Eaters' experiments, but as strongholds."

Draco licked his lips. "And we have a map of those places."

"Yes." Harry grinned at him.

Draco touched his shoulder. "This is important," he said. "News that we need. But I don't want you doing it again deliberately. Nothing is worth risking your life for."

Harry stared calmly at him. "You know we disagree on that," he said. "I think your life and my friends' lives are worth putting myself in danger for."

"I mean," Draco said, caught out again and not liking it—surely it was Harry's fault that he had been making so many generalizations lately?—"that I don't want you risking your life for the sake of information."

Harry nodded. "I'll try. I don't know what happened, Draco. I don't know why I was seeing visions before that dark gift settled into the back of my mind, and I don't know why this one was so powerful as to pull me into Nihil's stronghold. If I find myself there, though, then I'll spy or cause havoc or do as much damage as I can while I'm present."

Draco nodded reluctantly. He couldn't blame Harry for that. They needed to hurt Nihil as much as they could while staying as safe as possible themselves.

It was possible Nihil had learned some respect for them after their battle, but Draco didn't think so. Why otherwise would he send Aran, a single servant, to try and destroy Harry's gift for necromancy?

"She also mentioned the unicorn ghosts," Harry said. "And Gregory. Nihil apparently mutters about them to himself, or else rumors are flying and coming to someone who's mostly hidden from the world. I wonder if the unicorn ghosts represent something he fears, some weapon we can use against him." His voice sank, and he stared ahead of himself, frowning as though he had another mad plan.

Draco grabbed his shoulder, forcing Harry to blink and face him. "Understand this," Draco said. "If you do something about this—if you try to find Gregory, for instance—you had _better _include me from the beginning." He took a deep breath and then realized that he might make this more palatable to Harry to decrease his temptation to strike out on his own. "And I imagine that your friends and Ventus would like to know as well, if she is right and we really are a comitatus."

Harry nodded. "I was actually thinking of going back to Hogwarts and seeking out the unicorns. The dead, if they'll show themselves to me, or the living if they won't. We need answers, and it'll be easier to find them than to find Gregory."

"Maybe not," Draco muttered, thinking of the way that living unicorns could bound through the Forest and lose themselves in patches of shadow he would have sworn were too small to hold a squirrel. On the other hand, the dead ones had stood at the very edge of the Forest, plainly visible.

"We'll try, at least," Harry said, and gave him a brilliant smile. "What do you say about tomorrow? I know that Hermione has an essay she's determined to get done today, which would prevent her from coming with us."

Draco stared at him and slowly shook his head. He reckoned Harry would always be quick to form plans like this, to dash into danger. At least he was making a conscious effort to include other people this time.

"What?" Harry's smile had faded, apparently because he had taken the headshake as a sign that he was wrong. "Do you have an essay to write, too?"

Draco finally gave in and laughed reluctantly. Harry shook his head as though bewildered, but then gave Draco a small smile and reached out to touch his shoulder, sliding his hand down to his arm.

"There are other things we could do in the meantime, while we're making plans and deciding what to say to the others," he said. His voice had gone breathy, and he looked up at Draco with dazed, dilated eyes.

Draco suspected he led the way to their rooms faster than was strictly necessary, but at least no one could accuse him of not having sufficient motivation.


	37. A World in Chaos

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Thirty-Seven—A World in Chaos_

"Why would unicorn ghosts come to you in the first place?" Ventus asked. "It's not as though you've hunted unicorns." She paused, then added, "I think."

Harry rolled his eyes. He had assumed that one nice side-effect of Ventus's intense focus on battle meant that she wouldn't ask questions about other things. But when the excursions they took provided her with no chance to use her offensive magic, it seemed that she wasn't above peppering her speech with assumptions and speculations that made her sound like a two-year-old.

"That's what we're going to find out," Hermione said, in a voice of strained patience that Harry understood well. "Why they would come to him in the first place. They didn't give him any solid information."

"That was a terrible pun, Granger," Draco said.

"What?" Hermione said, and then Harry could practically feel her scowl as she figured it out. "Yes, Malfoy, funny."

Ron, walking along at Harry's side, gave him a sympathetic glance. Harry just shook his head back in exasperation and hoped that the unicorn ghosts hadn't decided to be as shy as their living cousins. They were making so much noise as they walked through the Forbidden Forest that the ghosts could hear them coming in plenty of time to hide.

Something shifted in the gloom in front of them, something that had long, slender legs and a pale coat. Harry paused and raised his wand, which had a _Lumos _Charm on the very tip, higher. If they had found a unicorn ghost, he didn't want to stumble into it, and if it was a live unicorn, he wanted to leave it the chance to get away. One thing he remembered about unicorns from his time at Hogwarts—almost the only thing—was that they could become fierce if they were cornered, especially mares with foals.

The others had fallen silent, thank Merlin. But Harry's wand revealed nothing except a crushed-down bed of grass in the middle of the path where a unicorn might have been resting. Harry wasn't sure if the things he had seen were even real. He sighed in disgust and lowered his wand again.

Ventus started to say something, but Harry turned around and glared at her. "Can you be _quiet _for once?" he whispered harshly.

Ventus looked at him with wide eyes. Harry didn't know if she was surprised or offended, and he didn't think that he wanted to know. By the time she drew breath to answer, he had turned around and was pushing on.

Twigs still snapped under their feet. Branches still rustled as they pushed past them. There were still soft curses from Draco when the briars caught his robes, or mutters from Hermione about how they were on a fool's mission. But they were quieter than they had been. Harry reckoned that he'd have to take what he could get.

Another flash of movement in front of him, another movement of the wand and a revelation of nothing there. Harry closed his eyes, feeling an enormous frustration clogging his head and throat. He wanted to break out in childish shouting and stamping. They had come here specifically searching for unicorn ghosts, and Merlin knew if they would ever find them.

Then Hermione cried out, and Draco hissed, and even Ventus made a kind of startled sound. Harry heard Ron squeak, as though he wanted to shout but fear had closed his throat.

Harry opened his eyes.

In front of them were several shimmering ranks of transparent unicorns. This close, Harry could see that their eyes were a fierce, cold blue, the way he imagined stars would look if they could come close to earth without burning it up. He shivered in spite of himself, although the chill he had been expecting from them didn't come. Maybe using necromancy had made him immune to it in some way.

The dark shimmer in the back of his head was—_vibrating _was the only word Harry could come up with for it, sending tremors through his bones that distorted his vision like static on a Muggle telly. Harry relaxed. At least he thought he could trust the shimmer's intuition that these were real ghosts and not illusions or some trick of Nihil's.

He waited for the unicorns to speak or make some kind of gesture inviting _them _to speak, but nothing happened. So Harry cleared his throat and said the first thing that came into his head.

"Why are you haunting Nihil?"

The nearest unicorn moved slowly forwards, transparent horn lowered and pointed at his heart. Harry stood still. He knew that the unicorn couldn't stab him the way one of its living cousins would, at least. And the damage it would inflict in other ways was less for a necromancer. He was certain of it.

At least, he thought he was. It took more courage than he had believed he had to stand there while the horn slipped past the cloth over his chest and then _into _his chest.

Draco snarled something and started forwards. Harry reached out and put a hand on his arm.

The world had grown distant around him. The corners of his vision were dim. The sounds that echoed from Draco and the others—even Hermione was edging forwards, swinging her wand, as if fighting the unicorns would do any good—seemed to come from underwater. He could feel that he was touching Draco's arm, but it was like touching a block of wood with another block of wood, not living flesh with living flesh.

Meanwhile, the unicorns suddenly shone and solidified, becoming so visible that Harry winced. They seemed to shed faint rays of white light that hurt his eyes. And the chill around them hurt his lungs. He licked his lips, settled more firmly into himself, and then said, "I don't think they'll hurt me."

_We might._

Harry felt the words break like a Disillusionment Charm over his head and then sink into his body in the same disturbing way. He grimaced and forced himself to keep standing still. He wondered if his own words had been audible to the others; they certainly hadn't heard the unicorns, if the blank look Draco, in particular, was giving them was any indication.

"What makes the difference for you?" Harry asked. "I haven't come to hurt you. I don't want to enslave you, the way that other necromancers might. I only want to ask you questions."

_You asked one question that says you are allied with _him_, or how would you have learned that we have been in sight of him?_

Harry shivered. The hatred with which the unicorn talked about Nihil was so immense that it formed a weight of its own, separate from the words, in Harry's bones and skin. He wanted to take a shower.

"A friend of mine, who Nihil captured, told me about you," Harry said levelly. "But I'm not allied with him. I fought him. He's afraid of me, to the point that he tried to stop me from using necromancy. Isn't there a way that you can see that I'm telling the truth? You're ghosts. I can speak to the dead, or necromancers can. Can't you see?"

The unicorn shifted forwards still more. Harry closed his eyes and opened his mouth slightly, then realized what the sight of him screaming and unable to speak would do to Draco. He shut it again.

_There is a battle here. _The unicorn said it slowly, as if it didn't want to acknowledge that Harry might be right. _There are traces of the magic you worked. But you are part of the change that is moving through the world._

Harry thought he could ignore the icy sensation of a spear passing through the walls of his heart itself for the sake of new information. "A change? What do you mean? I haven't been conscious of something like that."

_So many changes, _the spirit said, and if it could have expressed sadness, Harry thought it would have. There was only a minor shift in the chill, though, and that soundless voice didn't truly give away its emotions. _We slept quietly once. But there were shifts, and then the feeding woke us, and then the balance was disturbed by the passing of one who had tried to live forever, and then this immortal arose._

Harry frowned, trying to work that out. "The feeding was Voldemort," he said at last. "Wasn't it? He came and fed on your blood, and that must have woken you up. And then he died after he had tried to live forever. But I don't see why Nihil would be connected to that. He hates Voldemort."

The unicorn ghost stamped a hoof and pressed its horn further in. Harry moaned with pain, and felt Draco clutch at him. Harry did his best to lean against Draco reassuringly while never taking his eyes from the unicorn. He didn't think that he would be able to break free of it at the moment in order to speak to Draco.

_Death has a balance, _the unicorn said, its words striking Harry like hammer blows on his ears. _It ties the living world and the place where ghosts are, and it shifts back and forth like the tide. If one wizard makes experiments in how to live forever, it does not disrupt the balance. But there were many experiments in a short time that slew those who never should have died and killed others. And then this. This immortal is a new creature. He is not alive. He cannot die. He is many while still being able to exist in a single, central point. We have woken, and we will not be at peace until he is gone._

"I don't understand," Harry said at last, when he thought he could speak instead of just stand there with his teeth chattering. "I killed Voldemort. Should I not have done that? What can I do about Nihil?"

_Start the tide flowing in its proper balance again, _the unicorn said. _Act as the moon. Nihil is a moon too powerful. You must be a larger one._

"What?" Harry started to ask again, but the unicorn slipped its horn free of his heart and turned away, trotting into the woods. Harry blinked, and the massed ranks of unicorns vanished as though they were a candle flame someone had blown out. They were left alone in the dark Forbidden Forest with the leaves rubbing above them and something that sounded disturbingly like laughter in the distance.

"Well?" Draco demanded, his hand tightening painfully on Harry's arm, now that he could feel things like that again. "Was it worth you giving me a heart attack from panic, to learn what you did?"

Harry nodded, turning to him. "I think so. But we need to go somewhere and discuss it. Can we, please?" He was shivering now, and he raised a hand and rubbed on his chest over his heart, where the horn had touched him. "I'm so cold."

* * *

_Stupid, Gryffindor idiot._

Unfortunately, Draco's thoughts couldn't simply sustain themselves for long, because Draco was reminded too quickly that Harry had used necromancy when he spoke with the unicorns and when he fought Nihil, and that wasn't something a mindlessly noble Gryffindor would ever do.

Draco scowled and sipped his tea.

The Headmistress had welcomed them, with a few frowns at Draco as if she didn't understand what he was doing there, and a few speculative glances at Ventus as an unknown quantity. She had seated them in a small, comfortable room that Draco didn't remember seeing before; he didn't think it was either her office or the Gryffindor Head of House's rooms, but he hadn't ever seen the latter. Fires burned in two hearths, and the walls were covered with restrained portraits of dignified witches and wizards who watched them and whispered behind their hands. The décor was wood and bronze, the chairs and the couches done in sober brown upholstery. Draco had to admit that it wasn't impossible for Gryffindors to have taste.

Now McGonagall sat on a couch between Harry and Ventus, her eyes fixed on the fire nearest them and her own sips calm and regulated. Draco could read her better than she thought, however. She was as eager to ask questions as Draco was to keep her from learning anything about what they had found tonight.

"A pleasant and unexpected visit," she said, when the silence had grown deep enough that Draco planned on breaking it if she didn't. "But I do wonder why you wanted my permission to look in the Forbidden Forest, much less to do it at night." She turned her head and looked at Harry, of course taking him for their leader.

Harry grimaced a little and rubbed his chest over his heart. He had been doing that ever since the unicorn had stabbed him. Draco put a hand on his leg so that Harry would know he was there if support was needed, and Harry glanced sideways at him and smiled before he focused on McGonagall.

"I discovered something tonight I wish I hadn't known," he said. "The unicorns that Voldemort killed when he was living in the Forbidden Forest and feeding on their blood are around as ghosts."

McGonagall caught her breath, but didn't look entirely surprised. "Hagrid has been talking about unicorns lately," she murmured. "And he seemed to think there was something strange about them." She paused, as if she expected Harry to take up the thread of the conversation, and frowned and continued when he didn't. "What can we do to make sure that they return to their rest?"

Harry shook his head. Draco hated the weary expression on his face. He was willing to fight for Harry, bleed for him, defend him, curse for him, but what could he do about this? It seemed that Harry was doomed to deal with most of his necromancy problems alone. "I don't know. They've told me where they came from, but I don't think they communicate in the same way as we do."

Draco snorted bitterly, remembering the agonized expression on Harry's face when the unicorn had pierced him with its horn. _That's an understatement._

"We must do something, of course," McGonagall said, as though that was decided. "We cannot have the ghosts haunting the Forest, frightening the students and the other creatures who live there." She shut her eyes and seemed to commune with someone invisible, the way Draco had sometimes seen Dumbledore do.

Draco couldn't help himself. "You're worried about them frightening the _things _that live in the Forbidden Forest? Are we talking about the same place?"

McGonagall opened her eyes and gave him a severe look. "The creatures that live there can deal with many things that are natural, and many that are magical," she said. "But I have never heard of unicorn spirits wandering about. I imagine that things have changed there, and yes, they may be frightened. And that could lead to a greater than normal number of injuries should some of our students venture there—as, indeed, some do every year, despite stringent rules." She looked at Harry with fond exasperation.

Draco suddenly and intensely missed Professor Snape, and wished that he was still alive and teaching at Hogwarts. He would have made Draco feel welcome with nothing more than a few words, and his presence, even if he was harsh about the idiocy of Draco's involving himself with a Gryffindor, would have been a good counter to McGonagall's liking for Harry.

_And I'm being ridiculous, acting as though we're still students at Hogwarts and things haven't changed, _he thought, and did his best to put his irritation aside. "All right, I understand," he said. "But why would you think that you could help? They seem to have fixated on Harry."

"There's no need to be _rude, _Malfoy," Granger said in shocked tones. Draco thought she was just as affected by being back at Hogwarts as any of them, and apparently, being rude to a professor was anathema.

McGonagall nodded, agreeing with Granger's inappropriate reverence for her. "There is not. I will offer you help in every way that I can, even if this _is _something that Mr. Potter must do for himself—which I haven't seen any evidence of yet." She turned towards Harry. "Do you know why they spoke to you in particular?"

Harry hesitated. Draco willed him to remember the lies they had come up with before they returned to the school. Of course, he probably wasn't hesitating out of a lack of memory, but because he didn't know how to make the lie convincing.

"I hate to say it," Harry muttered at last, and his voice was reluctant enough to make anyone believe him, "but I think I still have a connection to Voldemort somehow. Through my scar, or the fact that I defeated him. I thought the unicorns were angry at first because I had watched one of them die and didn't do anything to stop it, but now…I don't know. They said something about the tides of life and death being out of balance." That much information, Draco had decided they could safely reveal. Granger had wanted to say more, of course, but even she had reluctantly agreed that it wouldn't be possible to do that without explaining Harry's necromancy to McGonagall somehow.

"Does this have anything to do with the war that we have been hearing about, and the attacks of the living dead?" McGonagall's hands had tightened on her teacup.

"Maybe," Harry said, and at this point he was lying through his teeth, so Draco was impressed to see that his face remained calm while he did it. Impressed, and suspicious. _How many times has he lied to me like that? _"But why would the spirits of the unicorns alone wake up and not the spirits of any other murdered creatures? Or the people who died here at the Battle of Hogwarts? It doesn't make sense."

"Repeat what you said about balance," McGonagall said. Draco would have mocked her for not paying attention before, but from her pale face, he thought something must have just now occurred to her.

Harry said, a confused expression on his face, "They said that life and death were out of balance. Shifting tides going back and forth. And that someone needed to act as the moon to draw the tides back into alignment? Or something? I'm sorry, Headmistress. I'm not very good at riddles."

McGonagall gave him a brief, acid glance for that, which Draco didn't understand. Surely Harry was right and he _wasn't _very good at riddles. Then she closed her eyes and murmured, "I read something like this, years ago. It was in one of the books in the Hogwarts Library. Be still and let me think."

They were still and let her think, though Draco rolled his eyes a bit about the ridiculousness of it all. Harry caught his gaze and smiled wryly, instead of scolding him as Draco would have expected. Granger, on the other hand, looked righteously shocked enough for the both of them.

There was so much silence that Draco considered clearing his throat just to break it, when McGonagall snapped her eyes open and sucked in her breath. She looked so shocked and grieved that Draco stared at her.

"Yes, I remember now," she said. "I'll have Madam Prince bring me the book just to make sure I'm not wrong, but I remember." Her hand shook as she reached out and picked up her teacup again. Draco narrowed his eyes. _This could be more serious than I thought._

McGonagall sipped several times, then lowered the teacup and went on, "The metaphor of tides confused me. I had read something _similar_, but not exactly the same. The writer used the metaphor of scales instead."

Draco wanted to snort. He thought _he _would have spotted the similarity immediately. But he kept his mouth closed, because Harry was leaning forwards, intent, and Draco didn't want to ruin what could be a moment of revelation for him.

"There are some magical theorists who believe in a balance of magical forces," McGonagall said. "They argue that the Dark Arts and Healing magic being out of balance, for example, would bring ruin crashing down on everyone. There's quite an esoteric system of working out which magic is the opposite of which and how much of each should exist in the world before the balance changes." She managed a smile. "I was quite fascinated by it myself, when I was young."

"It's a stupid theory," Ventus remarked. "How can there ever be too much offensive magic in the world, and how can defensive magic ever balance some of the more powerful spells the War Wizards know?"

McGonagall stared at her askance, but Draco could almost hear her decision to put aside those strange words for now. She turned back to Harry. "Some theorists go further than that, and argue that other forces need to be in balance, as well. Life and death. Day and night."

"Good and evil," said Harry, who looked pleased that he could make a contribution.

But McGonagall shook her head. "Those theorists are careful to emphasize that they don't think _moral _qualities are in balance, and they try to disentangle the qualities we've assigned to the forces of nature. For them, darkness and death are not evil. That is only the human perception of them."

Harry folded his arms and scowled, exactly the way he did when Davidson corrected his grammar on one of his essays. Draco laid a hand on his shoulder and smiled at him to ease the sting.

"But those are only theories," he said to McGonagall, since he had done some of the same reading and was obviously the only one competent enough to discuss this with her. "They can't _actually _affect the balance of the world. No one has ever proven it."

McGonagall sighed. "No. But then, the feeling most of the theorists have is that we can't see the balance shifting because no one has ever shifted it. It would take so much magic that it wouldn't be worth trying simply to do it."

"But someone else, doing some_thing _else—" Weasley, of all people. Draco had been pleased that they wouldn't be troubled by his inane chatter during a conversation like this one, and sneered at him.

McGonagall nodded. "Yes. Perhaps the balance between life and death has shifted because of large-scale necromancy, which closely followed a war started by a wizard who wanted to be immortal. Things like this have never happened before. Necromancers tend to be quiet for the most part, or stopped before they get this far."

Harry caught Draco's eye, and Draco was sure he knew what Harry would have said if they were free to tell the whole truth to McGonagall. _And they're usually human, too. _

"So how do we put the balance of the world back again?" asked Granger. Her hands were clasped in her lap, and she looked appealingly back and forth from McGonagall to Harry, as if she assumed that one of them would give her the answer.

"I don't know," McGonagall said. "Some of the theorists were under the impression that making a sufficiently large display of magic in the other direction would be enough to shift the balance. But how does one display life?"

"Organize a large orgy and use the resulting births," Ventus said calmly.

Once again, McGonagall stared at her, and then visibly put most of that comment aside. "The children would not be born in time," she said primly, only her tight lips betraying her disapproval of the suggestion. "And in the meantime, the dead would keep rising and tilting the balance further and further. Even if a solution like that was strong enough at the time of—conception—it would doubtless not be so by the time that the births came about. We need a short-term solution."

"And what do other theorists say?" Draco asked. He had noticed that she hadn't mentioned all of the theorists.

McGonagall drew a deep breath. "That the balance of the world cannot be shifted back, once it has begun to alter. That the change will continue, even if the ones who changed it died the next day. And soon, it will begin to accelerate."

Harry, Draco saw, had closed his eyes and was once again rubbing the skin over his heart.

His other hand was rubbing his scar.

Draco reached over and snatched his hand, driven by the impulse to interrupt his isolation. Harry looked at him in surprise, and Draco clenched his fingers down and stared hard at him.

_He isn't going to be alone if he has to save the world this time, _Draco thought. _Never again._

They might have no hope. But that was no reason to sacrifice one person and then huddle behind his body when he fell.

After a moment, Harry understood and smiled.

It was a fragile expression. But Draco would take what he could get.


	38. An Explosion

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Thirty-Eight—An Explosion_

Harry had wondered how in the world he was going to deal with the knowledge that the balance of the world had been affected and they could all be in danger of—what? Dying? Not dying? Becoming Nihil's slaves?

As it turned out, the only way to deal with it, once he got back to the trainee barracks, was to forget about it for right now and continue working on his exams and the new exercises that the Aurors were putting them through.

Lowell and Weston were the grimmest, but all the instructors seemed to have adapted to the new, darker world of war they had decided they were living in. Davidson was teaching them to disguise their magical signatures, which she said would help more when battling enemies from a distance than hiding their faces or bodies would. Coronante, meanwhile, was teaching them to follow someone else through the small specks of magic they shed on a daily basis, usually from their spells, but also from their robes and wands.

"Someone who carries enchanted objects," Coronante had said, serious for once, holding up her finger as if she could command them all to pay attention to her by using it, "will always leave traces of enchantment behind. We can all thank Merlin that Muggles haven't developed technology that picks up on it." She paused, then added impressively, "_Yet_."

Draco had muttered something about the impossibilities of Muggles doing any such thing, but even he had listened.

Hestia was drilling them in Quick Response to the point that Harry went to bed each night with his hands shaking. And Lowell and Weston were relentless, both in the ordinary lessons and the private ones they held with Harry and Draco. They had partnered up many of the trainees, who protested that they should be allowed to choose their own partners.

They stopped that when Weston turned around, eyes blazing, and hissed at them, "You cannot be expected to know your own strengths and weaknesses the way the instructors can. You cannot be expected to choose your partners based on true compatibility and fighting skill, but rather on juvenile notions such as attraction. _We _will make the choices, and _you_ will accept and live with them."

After that, the other trainees shut up and did as they were told, though Harry noticed that more than one of them glanced sideways at him and Draco when Weston said those words about attraction.

Since Aran was gone, of course the Spell Lexicon class was not the same, but some of the other instructors, including Lowell, Weston, and Ketchum, took it in turns to teach them as many spells as their heads could hold. Harry noticed that most of them were defensive. Apparently the instructors still believed that most of the trainees wouldn't be in any full-scale battle.

_Or needed to be able to defend themselves better than they could attack, _Harry told himself, more charitably to the instructors, after watching half the class singe each other's hair or ears with the offensive charms they were allowed to practice.

It was strange, both exciting and depressing. Harry had the feeling that they were part of a large group of young animals flopping around in the dark, slowly making their way towards the light and adulthood. The instructors thought so, too, if the way they gave narrowed eyes, sharp commands, and rare nods of praise or approval was any indication.

Meanwhile, Nihil seemed to stay quiet. The usual reports came in, of ghosts and the dead walking, but they weren't connected to attacks so much as stray sightings. Harry wondered if he needed time to recover after the battle, or if he was planning something that required lulling his enemies off their guard.

And then something else came along—something Harry should have remembered, something that shattered the relaxation he'd started to slip into against his will.

* * *

Draco frowned at the owl that coasted down to sit on the table in front of him. It was an enormous bird, with thick, silvery, almost white feathers, rings of black around its golden eyes, and talons that, in a mere nervous flex, carved deep scratches into the surface of the table. It obviously wasn't a common post-owl, but he knew all his friends' birds, and none of them had one like this.

Still, the usual spells revealed no charms or curses on the letter that it held out to him. Draco accepted it and fed the owl half his sandwich as he considered the seal holding the letter shut.

Heavy, as gold as the owl's eyes, and decorated with a wolf's head howling at the moon and stars. Draco ran a list of people over in his mind, and ended up shaking his head. The only werewolf he had known was Remus Lupin, dead in the Battle of Hogwarts, and no other family's seal resembled this.

_Perhaps this is someone who wants to make a new alliance, _Draco thought as he slid a finger beneath the seal. _Or someone who wants to try and blackmail me._

The seal broke with a slight puff of air. The air coalesced in Draco's ears. He tried to hide his gasp of shock as his mother's voice suddenly spoke to him in a soft whisper from that air, but he was afraid he wasn't entirely successful.

"Draco. If you are hearing this than I have managed to send the letter with the seal of my new identity. I have fled from the Manor to Ireland, where I have a small house which an alternate identity of mine, Madam Rosegold, owns. Please allow her to communicate with you. Her seal is the wolf beneath the moon and stars, and I will use the seal to indicate whether I am free—howling—in danger—running and crouching—or moving to a new sanctuary—bounding away."

Narcissa's voice paused, and Draco closed his eyes. His forehead was tight with grief. His mother had not told even him about this identity or house of hers. He suspected he knew what was coming next.

"Your father," Narcissa said softly, "saw you come into Wiltshire with Potter in order to fight a strange creature. I believe this creature is a necromancer; I do not know if your father has thought that far ahead in his attempt to determine its identity, or whether he cares about it, next to his fury at you. All he has talked about since that day is his desire to punish you. I do not know if he means to kill you, but he began to—do certain things to me."

Draco choked. Harry stared at him in concern and reached out to put a hand on his shoulder, but Draco shook his head frantically. He had never heard of the spell that his mother had used to send her voice like this, and for all he knew, someone touching him might disrupt it.

"I have fled," Narcissa said. "Keep yourself safe, my son. For right now, I believe you will be safer if I don't attempt to communicate with you or visit you except in the guise of Madam Rosegold. Her first name is Clarinda, by the way. And there is one other piece of news. I have discovered that rumors that you were dating Potter, and certainly the knowledge that you were partnered with him, reached Azkaban last year, months before your father's escape. I do not know what this means. I do not know why he acted like the knowledge was new to him when he came home. Perhaps it was in an attempt to take us both off-guard.

"Be well, my son, and safe. I love you."

The voice ended. Draco sat where he was for long moments, eyes shut, fingers playing idly with the parchment in front of him. It was almost blank, he saw when he opened his eyes, with only a few lines telling him that Madam Rosegold had heard he was a fine young man, and could she speak with him? Her own son had been killed in the war, and since then she had been so lonely.

The real message would probably always come in the seals, Draco thought, sitting up and forcing his brain to function. It would be safer that way.

He hadn't known his mother could do that. He hadn't known she had a whole identity already in place, as opposed to having a bolthole or two where Lucius couldn't follow her, or a name that would shelter her. His mother was more capable and resourceful than he had dreamed.

He told himself that, over and over, to keep from panicking when he thought of her possible wounds from Lucius. He reminded himself, too, that she probably would not have hesitated to ask him for any healing potions or ingredients for them that she needed.

Probably.

"Draco, are you all right?"

Draco started and looked up. Harry hovered beside him, his eyes so large that they looked as if they would fall out of his head. He looked down at the letter in Draco's hands, then at his face, and seemed to make his own decision.

"Everyone out of the way!" he cried, leaping to his feet and cupping his hands around his mouth. Heads whipped towards him all over the dining hall, and more than one person stood up as if that would make getting out of here easier. "My partner's going to be sick!"

After that, there were more than enough hands to pull chairs and tables out of the way and open doors for them. Harry ran along with Draco's arm draped over his shoulder, loudly reassuring him that the toilet in their rooms would be the best one for him to use and that they were almost there. Draco held on firmly to the letter and Harry and shut his eyes, clinging on for the ride.

When the door of their rooms was locked behind them, Harry stretched him out on the bed and crawled in. He flicked his wand once. Draco blinked when he felt magic settle over the door instead of him, and then realized what had probably happened. Harry had cast a ward that would bring the sounds of retching to the ears of anyone who tried to listen in.

It was the sort of detail Harry wouldn't have thought of a few months ago. Draco tried to be proud of the part he had played in bringing about Harry's change, but it was hard to be anything except worried sick.

"What happened? Do you want to talk about it?" Harry's breath was warm against his throat, his words soft in Draco's ear.

Draco shook his head and reached up. Harry let him cling to his neck—though that was weak and childish, Draco had only one thought to spare for his own weakness before he simply gave up and cuddled closer to Harry—and stroked his hair, whispering soothing words into his ear. Draco shut his eyes and let his head loll to the side, until it found a comfortable resting place, a combination of Harry's neck and the pillow.

He breathed into the silence, and listened to Harry's heartbeat and his gentle murmurs and the swishing sound his hand made traveling through Draco's hair. He could feel the touch too, of course, but for some reason it was the sounds that relaxed him more than any of the other things. He'd always been like that, and once his mother had realized it, she used to hold Draco close to her when he had a nightmare and let him simply listen to her heart until he fell asleep again.

His mother…

Draco's throat and stomach were burning with an odd combination of resentment, fear, anger, and hatred. He had not thought his father so gone that he would turn on Narcissa, no matter how many months he had spent in Azkaban. He felt he should have been there himself to interfere, or at least tried harder to deceive his father or smooth over the mistake that had let Lucius see him fighting Nihil.

He didn't know what he could have done, but he was sure of one thing: he should have been stronger, better, cleverer, braver, than what he had been.

He opened his eyes and blinked at the ceiling when he realized where his thoughts were tending. They were the exact sort of thoughts he had scolded Harry for.

_Does he feel this way, this sort of guilt that he hasn't done as well as he thinks he should, all the time? It's worse than I thought. Worse to deal with than I thought, at least._

Draco finally lifted a hand and caressed Harry's hair back. Harry immediately stopped whispering to him and fixed anxious eyes on his face. His free hand came up to cup Draco's cheek.

"What can I do?" he whispered.

Draco had to shut his eyes a moment. That was Harry all over, always asking how he could help and how he could jump in to make things better. He didn't do it as much as Draco had once believed he did—he got interested where he thought he _could _help, rather than trying to sacrifice himself for random strangers on the street—but that made it better, now that Draco was included in the circle of people Harry loved.

Draco allowed himself to soak that in for a time, the reminder that he didn't have to stand alone, before he took a deep breath and told Harry what had happened.

Harry didn't try to suggest that Draco might be wrong, or might be jumping to conclusions about what had happened to his mother, the way Draco thought Granger would have. He didn't suggest immediate practical solutions to the problems, either, the way Blaise or Pansy would have. But he did listen, and he did stroke Draco's hair, and his eyes took on a deepening fiery glow, and Draco thought that was quite enough for the moment.

When Draco finished his recitation, Harry kissed him and lingered there for so long that Draco had almost forgotten anything but the taste of his lips by the time Harry raised his head again. "How much time will you need?" Harry asked softly.

Draco blinked. "For what? Mourning my mother? I hope that I won't have to mourn her, although—" He heard his voice rising, and shut his eyes.

"It's all right," Harry said, voice so earnest and sweet that Draco was doubly glad he had his eyes shut. "No. I meant the time that you'll need to take off from your training so that you can confront your father."

Draco stared at him in shock. "What?" he asked at last, when he thought he would say something sensible instead of stumbling and stammering over his words. "Harry—you can't possibly be thinking—"

"This has to end," Harry said, not loudly, but forcefully enough that Draco shut his mouth. "It _can't _continue, Draco. Your father can't threaten you, and threaten your mother, and potentially appear from the distance to hurt you at any moment. You're not going to be under his shadow the way I was under Voldemort's shadow. I wouldn't have let anyone I loved go through that. I'm not going to condone it now, either, now that the war's over."

Draco reached up and slid a hand down the side of Harry's face. He couldn't help the gesture, and he couldn't help the way he blinked rapidly to keep back the tears. But he didn't mind Harry seeing that.

Harry gave him a slow, generous smile, and proved he understood the importance of silence by waiting for a long moment before he asked, "Will you let me help? Do you agree that we should get rid of the threat that Lucius poses as soon as we can?"

Draco nodded twice, in case Harry thought he was only responding to one question, and then buried his head against Harry's chest. Harry's arm curved around his shoulders and he began to hum beneath his breath, a song that Draco didn't recognize but which had a soothing tune. He seemed to understand that Draco liked sounds to comfort him, as well.

_I don't have to do this on my own. I can get answers about my mother and make my father step away and stop trying to take control of my life._

Draco closed his eyes and sank deeper into the warmth.

* * *

Harry put on a grave expression. He was glad that they had sent him to talk to Portillo Lopez. He would have had to lie to another Healer, and he didn't think he was very good at it. But he could tell Portillo Lopez the truth, or at least part of it, and as long as he looked sufficiently grim to anyone who passed the office, he shouldn't attract suspicion.

"You are aware that I must report any serious illness to the Aurors?" Portillo Lopez spoke without looking at him, her head bowed and her hair falling to the sides as she wrote something down on a piece of parchment. She wore a scarf, green fringed with gold, over her hair, as she usually did. Harry studied it as he answered.

"I know. But he's not really sick."

Portillo Lopez moved with impressive fluidity, spinning away from the parchment and drawing her wand. Harry didn't have time to breathe before it was pointed straight at him. He blinked and said nothing, since Portillo Lopez's eyes were flat and she was speaking.

"You have enchanted him with your necromancy? You plan to raise the dead for him?"

Harry shook his head, wondering if Portillo Lopez would insist on inspecting Lucius for signs of deadness if Harry told her the whole story. "No. His father's been making threats against him. He has to stop it. Draco needs time away from the Auror program to make him stop, though. I thought it would be simpler to use the excuse of sickness than involve the whole wizarding world in what should be a private family affair."

Portillo Lopez stared at him levelly, without lowering the wand. "His father is in Azkaban. What can he do from there?"

This was the part where Harry did have to lie. He leaned forwards, never looking away from her eyes, and then had a brief moment of panic as he wondered if he was overdoing it. Would someone who was telling the truth look away? Would he stare at the floor as he confessed the threat to his beloved partner's life?

But he decided in another moment that he couldn't worry about it. He had to worry about what _he _would do, not what someone else would.

"If you know anything about the Malfoy family," Harry whispered, "and especially what Lucius _used _to be, when the Ministry still trusted him and he was free, you wouldn't ask that."

"But he is not what he used to be, and he isn't free," Portillo Lopez said. Her wand still hadn't moved. Harry tried to keep from looking down at it, but it was hard. "So. Tell me. What can he do to Trainee Malfoy from inside prison? And why do you assume that the Ministry would do nothing when one of its trainees is threatened?"

Here, Harry felt comfortable enough to sneer. "As if all the Aurors feel that way. Haven't you noticed that most of them look sideways at Draco and don't do anything good for him if they can help it?"

Portillo Lopez did lower the wand then, her mouth tightening. "Yes, I have. But I can still help. Tell me what the threats are, and I will find a way to settle them."

Harry entertained a wistful image of Portillo Lopez and her Order showing up on the doorstep of Malfoy Manor. But Lucius could probably use wards to fry them or something. And since he wasn't dead—Draco had been certain of that, especially since he and his mother would have received news from Azkaban if Lucius had died—an order of anti-necromancers wouldn't have any power over him.

"Draco says that he thinks they're threats against his mother," Harry said, improvising by telling part of the truth, again. "And he isn't making them public. Draco doesn't want other people dragged into this, either. We have to handle it ourselves. We need someone to cover for us. Will you?" His second choice had been Ketchum, but Draco was unhappy with that idea.

Portillo Lopez gave him another of those slow, deep, uncomfortable looks that seemed to scour his soul. Harry tried to stand still instead of wriggling.

"You are still strange," Portillo Lopez whispered. "I can sense the taint of necromancy in you, but necromancers do not risk themselves for others. They do not feel love or compassion, either."

"Maybe I'm not as tainted as you think," Harry said. "Or maybe you don't know as much about necromancers as you think."

"I have tracked and killed over sixty," Portillo Lopez said, absently, not as if she intended to impress him. Then, while she was still studying Harry and Harry was still trying to react to her casual announcement of that many assassinations, she murmured, "No, it is something else. And I am interested enough in the difference between you and a being like Nihil to aid you. Perhaps you hold the key to something my Order has sought for years."

"What's that?" Harry asked, snapping in his relief. He hadn't meant to do that, he'd meant to thank her, but this was too important to both him and Draco. "A better way to kill them?"

"No," Portillo Lopez said. "A way to redeem you."

* * *

Draco looked up when Harry slipped back into their rooms and shut the door behind him. He tried to smile, but he knew it looked brittle and false on his face. "Did you get what we needed?" he demanded.

Harry strode across the room to kneel in front of him and take his hands. Harry had been touching him a lot more since the letter came, Draco thought absently, as if could sense how much Draco needed that touch. "Yes. Portillo Lopez is going to tell everyone that you're badly sick, and that I'm already infected since I spend so much time with you. She'll pretend that we're staying in her private infirmary while we're in Wiltshire."

Draco nodded. "In Wiltshire doing what, though?" This was the part he didn't understand. He had thought that Harry wanted to get him time away from the Auror program so he could check on his mother. But Harry had argued, with both force and good sense, that Draco didn't know enough about where his mother was staying, and that he would give her disguise away to Lucius if he did find her.

"Making sure that your father stops threatening you." Harry's face was grim.

Draco sighed. "And how can I do that? Exposing the fact that he's out of Azkaban isn't an option," he added, when he saw Harry opening his mouth. "I don't want more scandal attached to our name than I can help."

"I know," Harry said. "That's why I'm going to do most of it, so if this news does come out, we'll get away with it."

Draco sucked in his breath a little and looked at Harry with admiration. He hadn't thought Harry would ever use the power of his own name that way, but once again, he decided, Harry would do things for other people that he wouldn't do for himself. "So what's your plan?"

"I said it already." Harry's fingers moved in gentle patterns over Draco's knuckles. "Make him stop threatening you."

"But how—"

"I'm not picky.'

Draco shivered. Harry's face was so cold, and his power so intense, that Draco could feel the chill around them both at that moment as if he had stepped into the middle of the necromantic ritual again.

He leaned up and pressed his lips against Harry's, just for a moment.

_If I don't have the power to fight my father on my own, the next best thing is being beside someone who does._


	39. Crafty and Cunning

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Thirty-Nine—Crafty and Cunning_

Harry didn't really understand the mood he'd fallen into, but he didn't think he needed to. What was important was his focus, the quiet, calm determination that overcame him when he thought of Draco and Lucius. He would give Draco what he needed to defeat his father.

In the face of that, everything else could fall by the wayside. This was the immediate challenge. Some of the things he did might have long-term consequences, but "long-term" meant they weren't short-term, which meant he could face them when they got here.

He spread rumors, telling everyone who asked that Draco was still sick and getting ready to move into Portillo Lopez's private infirmary. He lied to Ron and Hermione with only one twinge of conscience, telling them he would have to spend a lot of time with Draco; Portillo Lopez thought the infection could be curbed, but only if he was under her care. He collected Draco's work from the instructors and nodded solemnly at their strict warnings about what would happen if Draco missed his exams.

And he thought up and discarded plan after plan for confronting Draco's father.

What _could _they do? Lucius was more skilled in Dark magic than either of them, and he could use Malfoy Manor's wards against them. He also had sole command of the house-elves, now that Narcissa had left. He didn't have compatible magic or Auror training, but he had enough other advantages that that probably wouldn't matter. And Harry wouldn't say they were completely trained Aurors, anyway.

Around and around his mind ran, on a small, stubborn track, dreaming up wild possibilities and more coherent ideas that always faltered for lack of something or other.

And then he came up with one that made him catch his breath and smile. Yes, that would probably work. It would depend on coaxing up Lucius's anger and aiming it more at himself than Draco, but Harry didn't think that would be difficult. It sounded like Lucius blamed him for "corrupting" Draco anyway.

Of course, he would also need to explain to Draco before he put it into effect, because otherwise he thought Draco would go mad with fear, and he really didn't need any more stress right now.

Harry turned and stared at Draco, who was sleeping in one of Portillo Lopez's private beds. Even though he was deep in slumber, his lips were locked together in pain and his brow furrowed.

Harry leaned down and kissed him, moved by an intensely protective impulse. Draco stirred, murmured, kicked sluggishly, and then returned to his rest.

"It'll be all right," Harry whispered. "I'll make it all right. Whatever I have to do. Whatever it takes."

"Such a vow is far more likely to put you on the darker path."

Harry jumped, pulling his hand back just in time so that it wouldn't hit Draco in the head. Then he turned around and stared at Portillo Lopez, who had emerged from the door to her potions lab and stood behind him. Her arms were folded. The scarf she wore around her hair dipped low enough that Harry couldn't see into her eyes.

"What do you mean?" Harry asked harshly, trying to calm his breathing and make himself seem less surprised than they both knew he was. A futile attempt, really, but Harry had the vague idea that it was what Draco would have done, except he probably would have succeeded.

"You know what I mean," Portillo Lopez said. She stepped forwards, holding something out to him. Harry focused on it, and frowned when he saw it looked like a wand, but made of ivory. "Many necromancers began their investigations for reasons that seemed good to them, loneliness or the desire to gain advantage for someone else by receiving answers from the dead. But their willingness to burn anything in their paths led them to the darkness." She handed him the wand.

Harry wasn't interested in debating the ethics of necromancy yet again with someone so against them as Portillo Lopez was. He turned the wand over and stared at it. There were wave-shaped impressions in the ivory. Harry wasn't sure what had made them, or why the small red jewel at one end of the wand was glowing with a dull fire.

"What is this?" he asked at last, staring up at Portillo Lopez.

"The key to my damnation and my expulsion from the Order," Portillo Lopez said, "if you do not return it."

Harry snorted. _If you're part of an Order, are you required to be cryptic by definition? _"That's not actually an answer, you know."

Portillo Lopez stared at him so long that Harry felt as though he'd been turned inside out and had his soul scrubbed on the way. He shifted uneasily, but remained beside Draco on the bed. No matter what she did, she wasn't going to get him to move from _there._

"The rod is a device that will let you sense when powerful Dark things are near you," Portillo Lopez said, with a nod at the ivory. "The red jewel will glow in the presence of the walking dead, or a being such as Nihil, or another necromancer who has advanced far enough down the dark path to be a danger to you. Or, of course, in the presence of a Dark creature such as a werewolf, though the glow will be more muted then. It was truly made to detect the dead, and is truly powerful only around them."

Harry frowned. "And your Order doesn't like you helping people, even with this?"

Another moment of silent study. Then Portillo Lopez held out her hand. Harry reluctantly gave the wand back to her. He didn't think they would meet many of Nihil's creatures in Malfoy Manor, but there could still be dead in Wiltshire, and anything that might help him protect Draco was welcome.

"Not with _this_," Portillo Lopez said, and pressed her fingers down on two of the wave-like carvings at the same moment as she covered the jewel with her cupped palm.

The wand made a clicking sound. The air around Harry vibrated, and he flinched, throwing a hand across his face instinctively.

Something passed him, whistling, and slammed into the wall. Portillo Lopez said a moment later, "You were not in danger. This would not have harmed you unless you were far more devoted to the dark path than I think you are." She paused reflectively, then added, "Of course, you might have fooled me, because I am not always as wise or thoughtful as I should be. Think of this in the nature of a final test."

Harry dropped his hand, glaring at her, and then turned around to look.

Nothing was embedded in the wall, as he had thought there would be. Instead, the stone was simply torn in a long, jagged slash, the way a piece of cloth might be. The crack ran from the ceiling halfway to the floor and then ended. Harry stared at the floor beneath it, and saw no sign of the weapon, either.

"What does it do?" he whispered.

"It surrounds the dead with the force of pure life," Portillo Lopez said, and passed the wand back to him. "The forces of growth, of decay, of change. They cannot withstand it, and will pass."

Harry licked his lips as he wondered what "pass" meant, and then decided to ignore that as best he could. "And how do I use it? And when?"

"Whenever you suspect that someone might be more, or less, than the living being they seem," said Portillo Lopez. She pointed with her fingers to two of the carvings, and Harry nodded and looked down, doing his best to memorize their appearances. "Press those, cover the jewel, and wait."

"You don't have to aim?" Harry looked at Draco, immediately imagining damaging him with the weapon.

Portillo Lopez shook her head. "This weapon harms only those who have some connection with necromancy or the dead. It instinctively aimed at you, not at him, you will notice." A momentary smile flicked across her face.

Harry stared at her. "It would have destroyed me if my connection to the dead was strong enough," he said. "And you didn't care."

"If you were that poisoned," Portillo Lopez said, gaze never wavering from him, "then it would have been a kindness to you to destroy you."

Harry shook his head. "Did you never think that necromancers might still be human?" he demanded. "How many of the ones you destroyed were like me, normal people who just happened to get involved in something they badly wanted but didn't fully understand? Do you never _think _about that? Or doesn't it matter to you?"

Portillo Lopez continued to regard him. Harry had thought she would look stunned, or remorseful, or angry. Instead, another smile crossed her lips.

"Compared to protecting the world from their excesses," she said, "it doesn't matter at all. Rather like your friends, and the rules of the Auror program, and your own safety, don't matter to you next to protecting _him_." She tossed her head at Draco.

Harry ground his teeth, but said nothing. He could hardly accuse her of hypocrisy in the face of that accusation.

Portillo Lopez shook her head. "It did not harm you, which is a sign that you are not yet marching down the darkest path. I will not apologize for making sure of that before I handed the weapon to you." She paused, then said, almost gently, "We all have our loyalties. Mine run in different directions in yours, that is all."

Harry clamped a hand down on the ivory wand and didn't answer. His gaze was fixed on Draco. He knew Portillo Lopez must have slipped out of the room at some point, but he didn't hear her go.

* * *

Draco frowned at the ceiling. Why was he here? He would have expected to wake in his bed with Harry, if—

And then he remembered and shut his eyes again, clenching his hands in the sheets beside him.

But this was only to gather strength. He had remembered the full extent of Lucius's crimes, yes, but he had an ally now, and he was going to do his best to find out what had happened to his mother as well as combat his father. Harry had promised to lend his strength to this. And what Harry lent his strength to, succeeded. Draco only had to remember the war against the Dark Lord to be assured of that.

In some ways, though, Draco feared his father more than he'd feared the Dark Lord.

_But Harry doesn't, _he reminded himself, and sat up. Harry was by his side in an instant, so quickly that Draco didn't spot the chair he'd lunged out of, only heard it ringing on the floor.

"Are you all right?" Harry's question was quiet, but intense. His hand found Draco's and squeezed.

Draco nodded. "I will be. What's the plan?" He trusted Harry to have at least thought about what they should do, although he'd probably come up with a plot Draco would have to poke holes in.

Harry hovered above him in silence for a few minutes, studying him with burning eyes, as if he had to make sure that Draco was all right before he responded. Draco could feel his face flushing under that scrutiny, but he fought the temptation to turn his head aside. He had _earned _the way Harry was looking at him. He had fought for it, argued for it, and stayed with Harry despite a betrayal that would have broken most people apart. It was important to remember that.

"Something you won't like at first," Harry said, "but hear me out."

Draco raised his eyebrows and nodded, which wasn't he wanted to do. But Harry had earned some things from Draco, too, not least of them a bit of indulgence. At least Harry had realized he wouldn't like this, instead of puffing up and defending himself from the beginning.

"Lucius thinks I corrupted you," Harry said, smoothing a finger down Draco's wrist and smiling at him. The smile made Draco blink. "If you hadn't dated me or become an Auror, you would still be his obedient little heir."

Draco shook his head. "It was my idea to become an Auror. I told him that before I left the Manor."

"But do you think he _believed _that?" Harry leaned forwards. "Or do you think that he would have reasoned backwards to convince himself that you would have left the Auror program when you realized how hard it was, if not for me?"

Draco hesitated. He wasn't an expert on his father's thought patterns anymore, since he had emerged from Azkaban, but then again, the man he had known would never have tried to betroth him to someone against his will. And Lucius couldn't seem to listen to any thoughts but his own.

"I think he probably believes what you say," he admitted reluctantly. "He had a problem giving me credit with independent thought before he went to prison, and that seemed the one quality of his character that had increased on his return."

Harry nodded. "So I'm going to make it appear as if I've come up to him alone. I'll yell at him, the most insulting shite I can think of. We _have _to lure him out from behind the Manor's wards, and I think the best way to do it is to kindle his temper."

"Why not have me there with you?" Draco insisted. He saw at once why Harry had said that he wouldn't like this plan. "If he sees me kissing you, touching you, or even standing with you, that could make him angry in the same way we need, without risking your life."

Harry stared him in the eye. "Because you have something else to do, something else that you _need _to do."

Draco narrowed his eyes back. "I'm listening."

"You know a lot more Dark Arts spells than I do," Harry said. "I suspect that you know at least one that would strip someone of—of what makes them _them_, don't you? We need you to become so powerful that Lucius can't threaten you, and we need to give you your home back. Can you find a spell that would transfer the Manor's wards and protections and the control of the house-elves to you? I thought you would be able to, which is why I'm volunteering as a distraction."

Draco licked his lips. His mind was blank of any spell that would fit Harry's description, because he was far more concerned with something else. "Why in the world would you think that was important?" he demanded in a whisper. "Why would you risk everything to help me get objects back that you don't care about at all?"

Harry grasped his hands and squeezed. "Give me credit for noticing some things about you," he said. "Including how important those mere 'objects' are to you. You're a Malfoy, Draco. Your heritage is important to you. Yeah, you don't talk much about it now, but you sure did in school, and I don't think as much has changed as you like to pretend. So you need your house back. You need a safe place where you can retreat when you need to, and something to fight for. I would still have my friends if I lost everything else, but you don't _have _as many friends as I do, except for Ventus. It would be best if you could keep your family. And if your father turns against you as much as he has and your mother has to hide for a while, your house is the visible symbol of that family."

Draco said nothing, but reached up and ran a hand gently down Harry's chest. Harry blinked at him. Draco let his hand linger for a while over Harry's heart, then reached up and cupped his cheek.

"You're more perceptive than you let on," Draco whispered. "More intuitive. More intelligent. At least about the people you care for."

"Yeah, well, Ron does the same thing for Hermione." Harry turned his head away, all the intensity and passion of a few moments before suddenly gone. "I don't—that is, I don't think I could do it for anyone but you."

A warmth coalesced in Draco's chest, and he smiled. "Then that's another gift that you offer me alone," he said. "A part of you that I possess and that no one else does."

Harry sighed and half-closed his eyes. "There's another reason to give you Malfoy Manor back," he whispered. "Without a place to hide, Lucius is going to be vulnerable to the people, like the Ministry, who could arrest him. You can threaten him a lot more effectively if he has nowhere to retreat."

"_Someone's _been paying attention in Ketchum's classes, I see," Draco said, keeping his voice light and teasing, because they had to get past this intimate moment and back to dealing with the reality around them somehow.

Harry opened his eyes and smiled at him. "Yes. So. Do you know a spell like that, or am I going to have to come up with something else?"

Draco frowned, closing his eyes. He could almost envision the leather-bound books in his father's library that would have the spell if any of them would, but he didn't know how recently he had read them. Besides, the perfect spell Harry was asking for either didn't exist or was kept locked up so that the Malfoy heirs couldn't use it to take control away from their parents before it was time.

On the other hand, Draco knew a spell that could reveal the contents of his memory to him like another book—if he was willing to pay the price for it.

"Give me a day or so," he murmured. "I can locate it in my head, but I'll need time and practice."

Harry kissed his forehead. "You can have as much time as you need," he said. "You always can."

Draco squeezed Harry's hand, and closed his eyes. If there was no easier method of forcing his memory out of his head—and he would try to locate one—then he would need rest to perform the harder spell.

But at least now, he knew he would do it with Harry by his side.

* * *

"I know you aren't really sick."

Harry jolted and put down the bag that he'd been holding. Hermione was standing in the door to his and Draco's rooms, where he had come back to fetch a few books for Draco. Her hands were on her hips, her eyes so bright that Harry wondered for a minute if she was about to start crying.

"Of course I'm not sick right now," Harry said, when he could remember his lie. "But Portillo Lopez thinks I might be, so—"

"Bollocks," said Hermione, and stormed into the room, slamming the door behind her. "What's happening? What kind of shady scheme does _he _want you to be part of that means you can't involve your _friends_?" Her voice was low and angry, and Harry winced. That was worse than when she yelled. At least she had shut the door, which lessened the chance of anyone else overhearing.

"Nothing shady," Harry said. "And I came up with the scheme and the lie, not him." He was going to be as blunt as possible, he told himself. He understood why Hermione would be upset, but he wasn't going to play the game by her rules just to keep her happy. Draco was too important.

Hermione blinked, as he had thought she would. Then she shook her head. "But it's because of him," she said. "What was that letter he got about?"

Harry thought quickly, never taking his eyes from Hermione. If he was too vague, she would insist on digging into this, and he and Draco couldn't afford that right now. On the other hand, be too direct, and she would insist on being _involved_, and Harry thought they could afford that even less.

And he didn't want to lose his friends, but he didn't want to put up with their lectures and certainty that Draco was to blame, either.

"All right, listen," he said. "The letter says that Draco's mother is in danger. We're going to rescue her." That was even the truth, in a roundabout way, since taking care of Lucius would make things safer for Narcissa if she wanted to come back home.

Hermione blinked. "Then why can't we be part of it?"

"Because you believe Draco's evil," Harry said. "He doesn't want to listen to that while we're fighting to protect his mother, all right? And we're only going to get one chance at this. Portillo Lopez is arranging time away from the barracks for us, but we won't have long. I don't want to be stopped or held up because you insist on holding your wand on Draco or whispering to me on the side."

"Harry," Hermione breathed. She looked stunned.

Harry stepped forwards and hugged her. Hermione accepted that, but she was breathing hard and her arms around him in return weren't steady.

"I do love you and Ron," Harry told her softly. "I don't want to lose you. But we've been growing apart since we entered the Auror program—no, before that, when I broke up with Ginny and you were together as a couple. I just _can't _do this anymore, Hermione, where it's the three of us against the world. Draco is a part of this now."

"That doesn't mean you have to give up letting us help." Hermione's fingers dug into his arms.

"I know," Harry said. A brilliant idea had just come to him, if only Hermione would agree. "That means you can stay here and cover for us. Deflect questions. Tell everyone that I was sick and you saw me getting worse the last time you spoke with me. That's the best move."

"_Lie_?" Hermione asked in shock, recoiling as though he had asked her to murder someone.

"You've lied before," Harry said, rolling his eyes at her. "About how much time you spend in your room instead of Ron's, for example."

Hermione blushed, but said, "This would be more complicated. And I'd have to lie to a lot of different people. I don't know, Harry."

Harry pulled back and smiled at her. Her eyes were bright again, but not with the tear-brightness. Her cheeks were flushed with more than embarrassment, and she already had her lips pursed, as though she was trying to figure out the best way to achieve something she wanted.

Harry touched her shoulder. "There's no one I would trust more than you and Ron. Or at least you, and then Ron can listen to you," he added more cautiously. He wasn't sure how well Ron would keep the secret once he realized that it involved Draco.

"I can get him to listen to me," Hermione said. She considered him solemnly. "But you need to promise to be careful."

Harry nodded. "I will be. There's some risk, but Draco doesn't like me being careless with my life any more than you do." And that was at least the truth, although he was leaving out a bunch of Dark Arts information.

"It's so strange," Hermione said, her hands briefly clenching on his robes, "to think that you're dating _Draco Malfoy _now, of all people, and that you'll probably go on dating him for a long time to come."

Harry kissed her on the cheek. "I know. But it's strange to think of being grown-up and out of Hogwarts, too. And alive," he added, as he thought of the way that he had believed he would die in the confrontation with Voldemort.

Hermione firmly embraced him. "I'll keep your secret. Be careful. And let Malfoy know that I'll kill him if anything happens to you."

Harry was still smiling, despite Hermione's threat against Draco, when he arrived back at Portillo Lopez's room and heard Draco's request for a black cat.


	40. A Black Bordered Letter

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Forty—A Black-Bordered Letter_

Harry went to Diagon Alley to buy the cat Draco needed. He gave three Galleons for an all-black one at the Magical Menagerie and didn't look the manager in the eye when he chattered on about how much fun Harry would have with his new pet. Harry got out of buying food and other necessities by pretending to already have a cat, and fled as soon as he could.

He walked down the alley with the cat in his arms. It touched his face with one paw and then settled down in the travel cage he was carrying it in, staring at everything with wide green eyes.

Somehow, Harry thought things might have been better if it had struggled.

He closed his eyes and communed with himself before he Apparated. He knew what was likely to happen to this cast when Draco got hold of it. He couldn't pretend he didn't. Could he really bring himself to do this? Didn't even a cat's life matter more than—

More than what? More than Draco's chance to confront his father and get out of the confrontation alive?

In the end, Harry shook his head and Apparated, holding the cage close to him. He had already made his choice. He had decided to leave his friends behind; he had decided to lie to the Auror instructors. He was going to take Portillo Lopez's strange weapon with him, even, all because he wanted to protect Draco.

Set against that, what was a little more Dark Arts?

* * *

Draco had spent most of the day sleeping, ignoring the contemptuous glances that Portillo Lopez gave him whenever she crossed the room. She was free to think whatever she liked, but the plain truth of the matter was that Draco would have to do something hard and draining of his own vital force tonight, and he needed to be as alert as possible when that happened.

After he woke, he ate three of the sandwiches that Harry had brought for him from the dining hall and locked under a Preservation Charm. Three, and no more, because although he'd _meant _to eat more, his jaw locked when he reached for the fourth and his stomach started swimming.

_All right, _Draco thought, sitting back and watching the door, which he expected to open at any moment to admit Harry with the black cat he needed. _It'll be all right. Do what your body needs and don't push it._

He would be pushing his body so hard later that he didn't need the distraction of nausea. That was the way Draco phrased it to himself, and even mostly managed to think, rather than thinking himself weak.

Mostly.

The door swung open at last, and Harry staggered in holding a large cage. His face was grey. Draco suspected he knew why, and it wasn't from the weight.

But he had to be the calm one, especially since panicking during the ritual he had to perform would ruin their chances utterly. "Thank you, Harry," he said quietly, and took the cage. The black cat inside stared at him as Draco scanned it. Yes, he couldn't find a white hair anywhere on the body.

He turned back to find Harry watching him anxiously, and gave him a smile that was as reassuring as possible. "He's what I needed," he said. "Thanks." He opened the cage, and the cat emerged into the room, whiskers twitching as it began to sniff the furniture. It appeared to be an even-tempered cat, which suited Draco just fine.

"What else will you need?" Harry stood with his hands locked together behind his back, staring at the wall. He carefully kept his eyes away from the cat, Draco noticed.

Draco looked at him. "Are you going to be able to do this?" he asked. "Because if not, you don't have to participate in the ritual itself."

"But I want to help." Harry frowned at him.

"I know." Draco touched his shoulder. "But you'll be more help if you stay at a distance, if you can't bear this. If anyone interrupts me at any moment during this, I'm probably going to suffer irreparable damage to my mind and body."

That made Harry look horrified, as Draco had known it would. He swallowed. Then he said, "And there's no other way?"

Draco shook his head. Then he thought about it, and added, "A few other ways, but they would either require books that are locked up in Malfoy Manor or time that I don't think we have, given that Portillo Lopez can't hide us for long."

Harry gave a clipped nod. "Then I'll help. You matter more to me than a cat, Draco." His face heated up.

Draco leaned in and kissed him, making sure to keep it lingering, soft, affectionate. His fingers touched Harry's cheeks, and Harry sighed and parted his lips. Draco slipped his tongue into Harry's mouth and shivered with longing. It _was _too bad that they didn't have time to do more than kiss right now.

On the other hand, that would distract him even further. Draco had been trying to sate his body's needs today, but there was no sating his need for Harry. He stepped away, keeping one hand in place on the back of Harry's neck, and asked gently, "You're sure?" Not everyone was suited to Dark Arts, his father had taught him, and it remained one of the most valuable lessons Draco had learned. It had saved him from trusting several people it would have been foolish to trust.

"Yes." Harry swallowed, but kept his gaze locked on Draco's face. Draco thought that was the greatest guarantee that he was going to get.

Draco stepped away from him completely. "Then let's begin."

* * *

Draco sat on the floor, his legs crossed, his arms folded, a small humming noise rising from his throat. Around him was a circle made of salt and tiny pieces of silver. Harry wasn't sure if Draco had conjured the pieces of silver, or stolen them, or maybe smashed an heirloom he owned to get them.

He hoped not. The whole point of this exercise was to keep Draco from having to sacrifice his heritage, after all.

Harry stood outside the circle, the cat in his arms. The cat had been fascinated by Draco ever since the humming began. Now and then he struggled to get free, but so far, Harry's grip had been stronger than his struggles. Harry didn't know how much longer that would last, especially since the cat had all his claws. But he would do whatever needed to be done for Draco's sake. He juggled the animal and waited for the signal Draco had told him would be needed.

Draco opened his eyes. For long moments, he seemed to be looking straight past Harry and the cat, and Harry held his breath, debating whether he should act. But then Draco blinked once, turned his gaze to them, and nodded.

That was the signal. Harry opened his arms, and the cat leaped to the ground and ran madly forwards. Harry expected him to pause when he came to the circle—Harry could feel the power locked in the silver and salt from here—but instead he ghosted through as if he couldn't feel the power at all. He settled at Draco's side, purring.

Harry nodded. That was what was supposed to happen. Draco had told Harry that he intended to make the cat his familiar first, because the ritual to open his memory and locate the spell that would transfer his heritage from Lucius to him required a sacrifice of a large part of himself. Draco would rather sacrifice a familiar than his sight, or one of his hands.

It made sense. It was, in fact, much less damaging than Harry had thought Dark Arts might be.

But he still had to avert his eyes some of the time as Draco touched the cat's head and then ran his hand down his throat, scratching his cheeks. The cat responded with a purr Harry had no trouble hearing and stood up, walking in his own neat circle around Draco. Then he jumped into his lap and settled his chin on Draco's arm.

Draco spoke a few last words. A bright star of silver light came into being above the cat's back and settled into his fur. The cat blinked lazily and turned his head. Harry saw he wore a silver collar, a neat line of metal that ducked under the fur of his neck here and there.

Harry had asked what was so special about making a familiar, when he had thought Hedwig was his familiar, and Draco had told him that the casual connection to an owl or a pet was different. A familiar was an extension of the witch or wizard who bonded it. They could see with its eyes, hear with its ears, and get its help in spells. The ritual to make one invested part of their life force in the familiar, and so they could be hurt badly if it died.

"How badly?" Harry had asked.

Draco had looked at him and hadn't answered. But seeing the way his hand stroked the cat's head now and the way his humming had slowed to match its purring, Harry thought he could understand.

Still, the pain was the point. The pain of the sacrifice would tear open his mind, Draco had explained, and allow him access to his buried memories. And the value of the sacrifice—the thing the Dark Arts spell needed, in the way that necromantic rituals required someone's blood—would give him the power necessary to invade his own subconscious for several minutes, rather than getting a flashing glimpse and nothing else.

It wasn't the sort of thing Harry could have brought himself to do, killing an animal who trusted him. Then again, he wasn't being asked to do it. Only to watch.

And Harry could do that much, because it was Draco who was asking. He braced himself and watched.

* * *

Draco had never made a familiar, because he didn't see why he should have a vulnerable part of himself running around outside his body. It was bad enough having secrets that other people knew, family members they could attack (or who could turn on him). It would be best if he could learn what he needed to know on his own.

Feeling the connection between him and the cat now, like a cord that ran from his heart to the heart of the cat, he understood why some wizards wanted them. It was for that feeling of connection as much as anything else. Someone who was lonely or not sufficiently ruthless would pay a lot for it.

Draco had to resist the temptation to bury his cheek in the cat's fur and hang on. He could already feel a name forming on the edge of his thoughts—the sort of private name that most wizards gave their familiars—which would become real if he let it.

But naming the cat would give this bond a kind of reality he didn't intend to let it have. Instead, keeping one hand in place on the back of the drowsily purring cat's neck, he reached down and picked up the weapon that had rested beside him.

It was a silver knife. Draco lowered it, and still the cat purred and didn't turn around or flinch. Why would he? He was Draco's familiar, and he trusted him.

Draco gritted his teeth. He hadn't wanted to know the cat was male, either, or at least he could have lived without the knowledge.

But the greater the sacrifice, the deeper he would be able to see into his own mind. So he let a few minutes more pass, the bond sinking deeper into himself, before he lifted the knife and shut his eyes.

"_Do familiarem meum,_" he whispered, and chopped down. He could have cut smoothly, and the death would be less messy, but the point was to cause pain.

The cat uttered an astonished yowl and flexed against him before Draco cut his throat. Then the blood was spilling over his hand, and there was a moment of shocked stillness while Draco concentrated on his goal, finding that spell that would enable him and Harry to survive.

Then the pain attacked him.

Draco closed his eyes. He could feel his own throat being cut, the new bond severed, and he wanted to flop around like a fish. He dug his bloody fingers into the cat's fur and hung on, though, as a piece of his soul was ripped away. It wasn't his _real _soul, and he couldn't be permanently damaged by the ending of a bond to a familiar that was so new. His throat ached and his chest was splitting and he could feel a braid of fire encircling his heart, but the _point _was what he wanted.

A red-edged tunnel opened in his mind's eye. Draco was speeding down it, falling down it, moving so fast that it was its own kind of pain. He could see colors from the corner of his gaze that were other memories, ones he didn't want and didn't have time for. He pushed them away and refocused on his goal.

He landed.

The spell he wanted was suddenly searing against him, pressing into him in letters of white flame that felt as though they'd been branded into his flesh. Draco screamed. He knew he did, because he heard Harry gasp back at him, the trembling cry of an animal whose mate had been wounded.

But still Harry didn't cross the circle, although it was howling with so much power that Draco wasn't sure he could have, at this point. He stood where he was, and had faith that Draco could do this.

That kind of faith gave Draco more strength still, and he recited the words to himself until he was sure that he wouldn't forget the incantation. The tunnel was already fading around him, but not the shocking pain. He would have to write down the spell as soon as he could, because then he would drop.

He forced his eyes open.

Harry knelt at the edge of the circle, his face stricken. He had one hand reaching out, but he had halted himself an inch from the barrier of flicking light that outlined the circle. His expression changed when he saw Draco opening his eyes, to one that Draco couldn't easily define right away but knew he would remember for the rest of his life.

"Are you all right?" he whispered.

Draco shook his head. "But I got what we needed," he said, which was the answer to a different question. He shoved, and the limp body of the cat fell from his lap. His fingers that held the knife were sticky with blood, and he had to use his other hand to wrench them free of the blade. "I don't—I'm tired."

"Lower the circle," Harry whispered.

Draco glanced over and blinked twice. It was the most effort he felt capable of giving, but it worked. Since he had completed his purpose, he had no reason to will the circle to remain, and rituals like this depended greatly on the will of the wizard. The light dissolved into a series of thin lines like winter tree branches and then vanished.

Harry was across it in a moment, kneeling with his arms around Draco. He didn't seem to care that he was crushing the cat's corpse with his knees or that he was getting blood all over him, too. His eyes were the whole world.

Draco smiled at him. He would have liked to stay in the embrace, but he needed parchment and a quill and ink before he faded. He whispered, "Please?"

Harry knew what he needed, since they'd arranged this before the ritual even began. Though he looked reluctant, he unwound his arms from Draco and reached into his pocket.

Draco wrote the incantation down, using Harry's knees as a table. Then he glanced once at the cat, because he thought he had to acknowledge the beast who had briefly been his familiar, however unwilling the bond had been on his side.

The cat's fur was matted and even darker around the throat. Looking at it made Draco's eyes swim. He dashed an irritated hand across them. He didn't want to cry.

"Let's get you to bed," Harry said, and carefully moved the parchment out of the way so it wouldn't get smudged by blood or the weight of his body. Draco approved of that. He'd chosen a good person to fall in love with, he thought hazily, as he leaned his head against Harry's shoulder and felt Harry lift him.

That was the last thing he felt for quite some time.

* * *

Harry had already cast a Cleaning Charm, tucked Draco into bed, and disposed of the cat's body by the time the letter arrived. It didn't come in the claws of an owl, but in the hands of Portillo Lopez, who stepped into the room, frowning.

"A Ministry owl brought this," she said, and then stiffened. "What Dark Arts spell did you work here?"

"The one _you _knew about," Harry said. He wasn't about to let her get away with pretending ignorance, when he had dropped several hints about what they were going to do and why he had to go shopping in Diagon Alley and she had ignored them all. He took the letter from her and turned it over. The border around the envelope was black. He swallowed and sat down hard on Draco's bed.

"There was damage to another living being," Portillo Lopez said, prowling around where Draco's circle had been. "I agreed to let you use your own blood, but not another's."

"It was a cat," Harry snapped, distracted from his debate about whether he should open the letter or not, learn the news, and hopefully spare Draco some of the agony that would come with it. "Draco made it his familiar and then sacrificed it."

Portillo Lopez paused, tilting her head and half-closing her eyes as though she was trying to identify a smell. "That would have hurt him greatly," she murmured.

"Yes, I _know_," Harry said, while his fingers nervously tapped the edges of the letter. In the end, he decided that it was better he be the first one to face the news of Narcissa's death which he thought the letter carried. He was supposed to be Draco's shield at all times right now, after all. He tore it open.

"I think the pain has been great enough." Portillo Lopez rocked in place, nodding. "Yes, I think he may live."

Harry did his best to ignore her. He was frowning at the top of the letter, wondering why Azkaban would send a letter to Draco.

_Draco Malfoy:_

_It is within our duty to inform you that your father, Lucius Malfoy, died trying to escape the prison last night. His body was found at the edge of the wards. How he got that far, we do not know, though our investigation is continuing. We believe he died because of the wards' magic reacting to the tracking spell that is implemented on all residents of Azkaban while they remain in our care._

Harry sneered. It seemed as though the wardens of Azkaban wanted to make the prison sound like a hospital.

_We will notify you at once if we learn that anyone gave him a wand or anything else that would enable him to escape. We sorrow for your loss, and await your questions._

There were signatures that Harry didn't bother paying attention to; he didn't know anything about Azkaban's hierarchy. Perhaps Draco would recognize them. He leaned back and took a deep breath. So it wasn't bad news. Draco had told him that Lucius had left behind a complicated illusion of himself which would die a slow death. The wardens must have discovered the corpse at last, that was all.

Although something niggled in the back of Harry's brain, something Draco had said about the illusion that bothered him.

But he couldn't recall it right now, and Portillo Lopez had finally left. Harry sat back in the chair and waited for Draco to wake up.

* * *

Draco swam out of a thick slumber and grimaced as he opened his eyes. He could still feel the pain of his familiar's death like a stake through the center of his chest, creating a wound that would exactly correspond to the missing life force that he'd invested in the familiar.

But he'd known that would happen, and he had determined the price to be worth paying. He didn't intend to think about it any more than he had to. He sat up and looked around, wondering if someone had food.

Harry was right there beside him, a tray with covered dishes steaming on the bed. But Harry was asleep. Draco smiled and took a moment to touch his hair before he picked up the tray, revealed toast and porridge, and started eating. The bland food tasted better than many luxurious meals had in the past.

He had almost finished when he saw the black-bordered letter in Harry's hand.

Draco forced himself to stop eating before he reached for it. Already he was bracing himself. The Ministry sent out an official notice of death only when they were involved somehow. If Aurors had found his mother murdered…

And then he saw what was in the letter, and felt a moment's blank relief before doubt made him curl his fingers tight, crumpling the parchment.

_If Father made an illusion and left it in the cell, as he told me he did, why was his body discovered near the edge of the wards? The illusion couldn't have moved like that on its own. That would defeat the whole purpose, especially because an attempted escape would make the guards more suspicious and more likely to look for contradictions or clues._

It fit with that piece of news about his father already seeming to know about his relationship with Harry. Draco didn't like it.

But he didn't see that there was much he could do about it now. He looked around, found the parchment with the incantation he had written within reach, and picked it up to study it. It was a complicated spell, but nothing that required a ritual or a circle, thank Merlin. Draco had had about enough of rituals and circles for now.

When Harry woke up, the first thing he did was touch Draco's face and then his lips, apparently confirming his reality. Draco permitted it, as well as his kiss. He was now bound more strongly to Harry than he had ever thought he could be bound to anyone.

He explained the puzzle the letter had given him to Harry, who snapped his fingers. _"That _was what sounded strange about it," he said. "I know you told me the illusion should have been in his cell."

"I don't know what it means," Draco admitted quietly. "And it makes me frightened to proceed."

Harry gave him an exaggerated smirk. "But you have the easy part! All you have to do is hide and cast an insanely complicated spell against a member of your family. _I _have to stand out in the open and take the risk."

Draco surprised himself by laughing. He hadn't ever thought he would have a lover who would make him do that at such a desperate point, either.

Harry smiled, but was quickly sober again. He touched Draco's brow, his lips, his hair. "I'll do whatever you need me to," he said. "You know that."

"I know," Draco said, turning his head to kiss Harry's palm. He caught sight of the letter from the corner of his eye, but told himself it would just have to wait. If he was lucky, he would be able to make Lucius tell him the truth about how he had escaped the prison when he was in a position of power over him.

Then he began to tell Harry the details of his plan: where they would hide, where Harry should stand to challenge Lucius, and so on. Harry listened with wide eyes and more than one nod, and, once, a grim smile.

Draco had magical power, surprise, and a faithful, skilled lover on his side.

It would have to be enough. Draco wouldn't permit anything less.


	41. The Shadow of a Shadow

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Forty-One—The Shadow of a Shadow_

"You're going, Harry?" Hermione's eyes were big and worried, to the point that Harry wondered if she would cry.

"Yeah." Harry hugged her and held on for a moment longer than necessary. He _thought _he would see her again, but he was also trying not to underestimate Lucius and how furious he would be. "Take care of yourself."

"I feel like I should be saying that to you," Hermione mumbled into his shoulder. She let him go after one more hard hug, and Harry turned to Ron.

Ron scowled at him. Harry had told him what was going on last of all, and he was obviously battling resentment of that. Harry held out one hand, half-hoping, half-fearing, and Ron groaned and clasped it.

"What she said, mate," he muttered. "Take care of yourself. And tell that bastard Malfoy that if he does anything to you—"

"Anything he does to me will be fully consensual and because I want it," Harry snapped. He understood his friends' concern, but he wished they had just focused on what might happen to him because of Lucius's anger and curses, rather than Draco. Draco wasn't going to do anything to him. Harry was sure of that, now, with the bond of secrecy and horror about the Dark ritual stretched tight between them.

Ron stared at him. Harry glared back at him with his jaw set, and Ron finally shook his head and said in a tone of soft resignation, "You really mean that, don't you? You're that sure of him."

"As sure as you are of Hermione," Harry said. He tried to make his voice gentler than he had so far, because it sounded like Ron was close to a revelation, and Harry didn't want to make him back off if he was.

Ron blew out his breath and nodded. "All right, then. We'll try to take revenge on Mr. Malfoy before we take it on—Draco." He said the name as if it was strangling him, but he said it.

Harry spared one amused moment to wonder whether or not Draco would be happy if he heard Ron saying his name like that, and then reminded himself that it was the kind of question he would ask in happier times, after this had finished. He pounded Ron on the shoulder and turned to the door. He had to get back to Portillo Lopez's rooms from Ron's as soon as possible, since he wasn't supposed to be wandering around at all for fears of "infection." Luckily, he had his Invisibility Cloak with him.

"Harry?"

Harry glanced back over his shoulder. Hermione stood there, hanging on to Ron and facing him with glistening eyes. Harry shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot. He was always upset when Hermione cried, and especially over him.

"Stay as safe as you can," Hermione whispered. "Don't take any risks that you don't have to. Will you promise me? I think Draco would agree."

That was an easy promise to make, and Harry gave it. Only when he was walking down the corridor, clad in the Invisibility Cloak and avoiding the trainees and sometimes Aurors who passed, did he allow himself to say the counterargument in his mind.

_There are so many risks to this situation that the number of unnecessary ones is pretty low._

* * *

Amazingly, Portillo Lopez let them go without one last piece of cryptic advice. She simply watched them, eyes narrowed especially on Draco—instead of Harry, the one who had actually _practiced _necromancy—as they clasped each other close and prepared to Apparate from her rooms. She had lowered the anti-Apparition wards temporarily so they could.

Draco felt her gaze, but he didn't turn to acknowledge it. He was picturing the small hill near the Manor where they would appear instead, and so he had a legitimate excuse.

But someday, they were going to have it out, she and him.

The rooms turned dark around them, and inside out. Draco gritted his teeth. He had always felt the squeezing sensation of Apparition a lot more if someone else was with him, as if the space didn't grow bigger to accommodate both of them. But by now, holding the image of the place he was Apparating to in his mind was much easier than it had been, and he could maintain it through any amount of pain.

He tried not to think that he might have to have that tested, soon.

When he opened his eyes, it was like being slapped in the face. The barracks had been dark; this hill was bright with the sun slanting off the snow. Portillo Lopez, even more than the other instructors, liked to keep the air in her room motionless so the small shifts of breezes didn't disturb her potions. Here, the wind moaned and danced around them, and Draco could see, from the size of the clouds, that more snow would be coming soon.

"I forgot what it was like out here," Harry muttered. "It's easy to do when you never go outside." He paused, and a strange, wistful tone came into his voice. "It's almost Christmas, isn't it?"

Draco nodded silently. He knew Harry was thinking of last year, when they had gone to the Manor for Christmas and his mother had welcomed Harry (who had been going to spend part of the holiday alone in the trainee barracks and part of it with the Weasleys, as if he didn't have more and better places to go, if he wanted).

"Hmmm." Harry, luckily, didn't say any more about it; Draco wasn't sure how well he would deal with mentions of his mother right now. Instead, he dropped Draco's arm and cast several Warming Charms. "All right. Where are you going to hide?"

Draco looked around, mentally adjusting his map of the country to take in the snow. It wasn't very deep, really, and he had flown over these tiny hills, Muggle villages, and fields during all seasons, plenty of times. "There," he said, pointing. The group of rocks he had chosen was the only one of its kind in the immediate area, small, rugged, humped boulders, but though Lucius might use it as a rallying point, he wouldn't think Draco would use it as a hiding place. The rocks weren't especially magical, and his father had a prejudice in favor of magical means of defense so strong that he tended to think other people would do the exact same thing he did. "Behind the rocks. Within them."

Harry nodded. His eyes were sober, even half-hidden behind the veil of his warm breath rising in the air. "And how long will you need to cast the spell?"

Draco considered for a moment, keeping his gaze on the rocks so that he wouldn't have to turn and look at the shimmer in the distance that hid Malfoy Manor. He added time to cast the spell, time to wait until Lucius was sufficiently distracted, and time it would take to get his father out from behind the walls, and then subtracted that again. He wouldn't begin the spell until he was sure Lucius was in position, after all.

"Give me fifteen minute from the time he first appears," he said.

Harry nodded. His face was grim, his gaze distant, and Draco thought he was already sinking into the kind of battle-trance that Draco had seen him wear when he was commanding the necromantic snake against Nihil. Harry was actually calmer and more focused when he was fighting, the only person Draco had ever seen like that. Harry would probably deny it, but Draco didn't intend to argue about it. It was only important that _he _was the one on the battlefield who understood Harry.

"Will do," Harry said, and then he leaned over, one hand holding Draco's shoulder for balance, to kiss him.

Draco felt Harry's cold, chapped lips differently than he usually did. This might be—he was trying to resist the thought, but it _would _come—the last time they kissed. If Lucius destroyed Harry, as Draco knew he could do if Harry wasn't careful, then it would be.

Draco blinked. He had expected to feel at least _some _fear for his own life, but really, his heartbeat was amazingly calm. It was Harry who seemed surrounded by a halo of uncertainty, the same color as the light from the snow, to him.

"What?" Harry stepped back and raised an eyebrow.

Draco mustered a smile. "Stop stealing my characteristic gestures."

Harry promptly waggled both eyebrows up and down, and Draco laughed. Then he touched Harry one more time on the shoulder and turned to focus on the rocks. He was going to Apparate behind them, not within them. He had once had a hiding place inside the tumbled stones, yes, but he didn't know if it was still there, and no desire to Splinch himself finding out.

"Good luck," Harry whispered.

Draco nodded once, and then leaped into nothingness, his mind already ticking with the complex syllables of the spell.

* * *

Harry stood on the hill and stared in the direction that Draco had told him led towards Malfoy Manor. He didn't think it was as easy to see the shimmer that marked the wards as Draco thought it was; Draco could probably do it because he'd lived there all his life and was used to what the defenses looked like from the outside.

But when Harry focused his eyes, he could make out the shimmer after all, a ghostly light dancing over the fields and concentrating in an egg-like shape around something close to the ground. Harry smiled grimly, made sure that he was aligned as perfectly as he could be with the shimmer, and then tapped his throat with his wand, casting the _Sonorus _Charm. Time to stop mucking about and let Lucius have it.

"Lucius!" he shouted. "Lucius Malfoy!"

The stones that Draco had gone to hide within shuddered form the force of his voice. Harry decided not to glance at them, in case Lucius was already watching him. He didn't want to do anything that would alert Lucius to his son's hiding place.

"I wanted you to know," Harry said, trying to render his tone conversational despite the loudness, "that Draco has _entirely _forsaken everything that you ever trained him into. He's an Auror now, serving the Ministry. He thinks it's grand that the Aurors might come and search through his heirlooms someday, finding the ones that are Dark artifacts and taking them away. I haven't managed to convince him to give you up yet, but it's only a matter of time."

He paused, swinging his hand idly back and forth, keeping a large grin on his face, and hoped that Draco wouldn't take this too hard. Harry had warned Draco about what he would say, but knowing it and hearing it were two different things.

Silence so far. Harry shrugged and shouted, "Oh, yes, I did mention that, didn't I? He changed his mind because of _me_. He's so desperate for me that he doesn't sound like a Malfoy anymore. He begs, and he knows that I'm the only one who could fill him up. In return, I've demanded that he change, because I could hardly associate with someone who didn't live up to my standards, could I? Like I said, the only thing he hasn't changed his mind on yet is you, but given that you're not loyal to him anymore and wanted to force him to marry against his will—even though he's as bent as a triangle—I don't think it'll be too much longer before I manage to convince him."

There was a sullen smolder now above the hidden walls and towers of Malfoy Manor. Or, at least, Harry convinced himself there was. The wards looked a little different, at least. Was that enough to count?

Harry gritted his teeth and did his best to continue in the same triumphant, bragging tone. "I've got your son kneeling at my feet, Lucius. He sucks cock like a champion, did you know that?" He paused and tilted his head thoughtfully to the side. "What am I saying? Of course you know that. You probably took advantage of his mouth a time or two yourself." He lowered his voice confidingly, though he was sure Lucius could still hear every word. "Were you the one who taught him to be careful of his teeth? I owe you a debt of thanks, if you did."

A cold wind raced past Harry, swifter than the breeze that had been blowing ever since they arrived. Harry checked the sky instinctively, but the clouds were moving too slowly to have blocked the sun or started shedding their snow yet. He smiled.

"What's the matter, Lucius?" he asked. "Scared to face the one who's proven that he can be a real _man _for your son?"

An ear-splitting screech hit Harry, and he whirled around to face the creature coming at him from above. It had wide wings, a golden beak, and hooked talons, and looked like a giant eagle. The shimmer at its edges said it was an illusion.

It was among the hardest things Harry had ever done, but he folded his arms and stood facing the bird without a flinch. Illusions couldn't hurt him, he thought, repeating the advice that Dearborn, of all people, had given him. He had to stand up to them and look around for the real trap while he did so.

He heard a slight crunch in the snow behind him in the moment before the bird let out another screech and stabbed out with one talon as if it wanted to tear his head from his shoulders. Harry whirled around, wand in hand.

Lucius stood there, one hand flaring with unnaturally bright scarlet fire, which he hurled at Harry. It might only be another illusion, but Harry didn't think so. He dropped and rolled, and felt the fire sting at his cheek as it rushed by overhead.

And then he was on his feet and dueling for his life, and he hoped that he could keep it up for fifteen minutes.

Lucius hurled complex spells, chained together, so that the fire spell caused one that ripped up the earth at Harry's feet, and while he was still dodging that, there was another one that loosed a lightning bolt at his temple, and then a pair of illusion-birds began circling his head, not damaging him but blocking his view of what Lucius was doing next. It was a use Harry had never considered for illusions, and he hissed in irritation.

But he knew one thing he could do that Lucius wouldn't be expecting, something that he disliked but which would give him an advantage and therefore _had _to be used. He had made sacrifices for Draco already; he could make one more.

He reached to the dark shimmer in the back of his mind and looked up at the circling birds. He tried to forget his fears about what Lucius might be doing while he did it. If he could complete this, it would turn the battle in his favor and distract Lucius well enough that Draco should have no trouble completing the spell.

Harry hissed in Parseltongue, trying to think of the way that the dark shimmer looked in his mind's eye, trying to make it reach out like a rope and encircle the birds the way his magic had somehow encircled the dark glamours that Ron and Hermione had cast on the battlefield against Nihil. His magic had formed a snake out of those illusions then; surely it could do the same thing this time, when he needed it to.

But the illusions didn't respond, and Harry realized a moment later what was wrong. On the battlefield against Nihil, he'd had a blood ritual—fake though it was—to work with and stir up his necromancy. Necromancy still required blood, and he didn't think he could get away without using it.

Cursing, especially because now he'd lost track of what Lucius was doing, he reacted on instinct and spun to the right, because the birds were particularly insistent on trying to attract his attention to the left.

Another crackling lightning bolt stung the air where he'd stood, and the birds faded. Lucius must be preparing another spell, Harry saw, and there was a good chance that he didn't have the energy to keep up the remnants of the prior one.

_Preparing—_

Harry turned his head and bit into his thumb, around the nail. He didn't have the time for a lot of finesse, and so he bit down and then wrenched his head backwards. The wound tore open hastily, along the nail in a long strip of skin. Blood fell onto the snow, and Harry heard a slight hissing that could have been simple heat or the magic that he wanted to use it for taking form.

He didn't have time to make a circle, either. He concentrated on the small patch of blood-soaked snow, neck prickling with the anticipation of Lucius's strike, and hissed again as he cast a small illusion of a snake with his wand.

The snake snapped into being, a small cobra, because that was the first thing Harry had thought of, its scales brilliant green and its hood flaring with an equally brilliant black figure-eight. It probably didn't look exactly like a real cobra. Harry didn't care. His purpose wasn't to fool Lucius.

He hissed a command to attack, and the snake floated towards Lucius, crossing over his blood on the way.

Things _changed_. The world rang for Harry as though someone had hit him on the side of the head, and the dark shimmer in the back of his mind expanded until it filled his thoughts like an oil slick. He gasped and reached out, snatching at the air, not sure what he was reaching for, but sure that he would know it when he found it.

He caught hold of something.

The world swayed again, and then Harry was on his feet, although he didn't remember rising, his hands stretched out in front of him and closed as though he were holding onto a bar. The snake boiled in front of him, scales the color of soot now, and watched him with chill, dead eyes. The blood was gone.

Harry again hissed the command to attack, and the snake flowed off. It had a body now; instead of just a glamour, it churned with cold energy, and Harry could see darkness opening into a far abyss if he concentrated on any part of its coils. He shook his head to resist the temptation and looked up at Lucius.

Lucius was gone.

Harry narrowed his eyes in confusion, relaxing his grip on the snake a bit, and then saw Lucius again, as if the narrowing of Harry's eyes had disrupted the glamour he was hiding behind. He was crouched down, digging his hands into the snow, a determined snarl on his face. Harry didn't know what spell he was hoping to accomplish; it fact, it looked as though he was holding on against an earthquake or a powerful blast of wind instead.

Then a glow from the corner of his eye distracted him. Harry commanded the snake to close the distance between it and Lucius and looked down.

Sticking out of the corner of his pocket, blazing urgently, was the ivory wand Portillo Lopez had given him.

* * *

Draco was halfway through the spell when he began to sense that something was wrong.

He opened his eyes and turned his head in a slow circle, seeking out the truth with his eyes. Then he realized how stupid that was when he was surrounded by solid rock, and turned so he could lean out the narrow entrance he had discovered to his old hiding place.

Harry and Lucius were at a distance from him, on top of the hill. Harry was standing still with something that looked as if it extended from his hands like a sword or a ribbon in front of him. Draco narrowed his eyes. What was that? Did Harry intend to defeat Lucius with an enchanted object instead of his magic?

And then Draco realized what was wrong, as he watched his father crouching in the snow. He could have been performing a spell or ritual there; that was normal. What _wasn't _normal was what wasn't there.

Draco should have been able to see the colored filaments of light spiraling around Lucius, reaching out from him to the Manor, made visible by the spell Draco was performing. Those filaments would flow towards Draco throughout the spell, until they finished by settling into him and giving him the stolen power.

But there was no such light around Lucius.

Draco paused, holding the spell ready in his mind but in abeyance for the moment. That was what had awakened him from the almost-trance he'd sunk into as he worked. The spell was reacting in odd ways, the power tugging itself towards him and then fading, swaying back and forth when it should have been steady. In fact, it had been swaying back and forth almost from the first moment that Draco touched it, as if Lucius had done something that caused the old wards and ancient protections to be displeased with him.

Acting on instinct, Draco turned to face the Manor.

There was the light he had expected to see, great chains of copper and bronze and scarlet, arching across the sky and descending through the air to join their claimant.

They were linked around his wrists, his arms, his chest, his neck, the way he had expected them to be after he had stolen them from Lucius.

Draco licked his lips. If he had continued with the spell, he would have been trying to steal power from the current owner and defender of Malfoy Manor—himself—to give to someone else—himself. The spell would still have tried to do so, but it would have become an endless circle, and Draco didn't know what the end result would have been. Probably something destructive.

Surrounded by those dancing chains of light, by the storm and the rainbow, Draco turned to face the hill again, looking closely at his father.

Who was not there. Who was less than a shadow of a shadow against the great and gleaming lights that broke from behind him.

Draco shook his head. His mouth was dry and his limbs shaking. He didn't know what was going on and didn't think he could describe it. He broke into a shambling run towards the hill, though, shouting for Harry to stop. He didn't know what would happen, either, if Harry managed to kill Lucius.

If he did. How could you kill a shadow?

* * *

Harry took the ivory wand in hand. The red jewel continued to glow, and the wand itself trembled and yearned against his grip, as if it wanted to fly towards Lucius and stab him through the heart.

Harry looked up again, and found that Lucius had vanished. There wasn't even an impression in the snow where he had crouched.

But let his eyes squint, and Lucius came back, dodging Harry's cobra with kicks and curses, his face paler than the snow.

Harry could think of only one solution. Lucius had somehow been replaced with a creature of Nihil's devising, some kind of ghost in service to him. Harry had seen ghosts like that on the battlefield not far from here, though they had looked more transparent than Lucius and had stayed the same between one blink and the next.

He knew what to do when this happened—what he _should _do before Nihil sensed his creation's distress and came to confront Harry and Draco.

He touched the wave-like carvings on the wand that Portillo Lopez had shown him and aimed the wand at Lucius, cupping his hand around the jewel.

The world shimmered and shook with the blast of power, and with Draco's rising shout.


	42. The Truth Emblazoned

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Forty-Two—The Truth Emblazoned_

Draco was about a hundred paces from the hill when Portillo Lopez's weapon fired, which turned out to be the perfect distance from which to see it work.

The flow of light that encompassed both his father and Harry was like wind suddenly made visible, rushing, nearly-white currents that filled Draco's nostrils with the scents of flowers, fresh fruit, and rotting leaves. He would have stopped and coughed from that overwhelming mixture, but he was too caught up in watching what had happened to think of anything else.

His father screamed, but the sound abruptly faded as though someone had Apparated with him in the middle of it. His body flared bright around the edges, and then thinned and _peeled _away from the air. Then he fell to the ground, imprisoned in what looked like a block of white cloth.

Harry flung a hand across his face, although to Draco the whiteness that came along with the light was nowhere near enough to blind. He gave a single cry of pain, and Draco's legs were pumping in response to that before he knew what he was doing.

But then a green cobra, edged with shimmering black, hurtled across the hill and wound itself around Harry. Draco didn't know where it had come from, and he didn't think it mattered. The point was that the white light earthed itself into the cobra, gathering there and pulsing, and didn't touch Harry.

By that point, Draco was on the slope of the hill. He gave a single glance at the bizarre spectacle that was his father, then turned and reached out for Harry.

He couldn't touch him. The white light held him physically back, making his hands tingle with what he thought was numbness. Then peace and good feeling seemed to flood him, rushing to his heart from his fingertips.

_Portillo Lopez did say that this was a force of life, _Draco remembered, still straining to reach through the light to Harry. _But she didn't say what would happen if Harry was stupid enough to set it off himself! And especially right after necromancy!_ By then, he had seen the torn fingernail on Harry's thumb, and knew the snake must have come from the same sort of bloody illusion that he had done on the battlefield against Nihil.

How fucking long was this going to continue? The white light still spiraled around Harry, and still vanished into the cobra's scales whenever it tried to touch him. The cobra was growing fainter and smaller, and Draco didn't know how much longer its protection could last.

In the face of possibly losing his lover the way he had lost his father, he could do nothing but continue to reach out.

* * *

Harry had never been in the presence of so much life. He could smell roses, see in his mind's eye the whirling colors of summer, feel the turning of the planet beneath his feet, and hear the chorus of birds.

He could also see all that life hissing around him like a blade, and he knew that he would do something worse than die if it touched him.

The cobra wrapped him closer and closer. Harry didn't know how he could breathe through the scales, and then remembered that it was an illusion and didn't actually touch him.

But at the same time, he remembered that the cobra was somehow protecting him against the light, and how could it do that if it was only an illusion?

He shook his head. He was beginning to think he had been stupid when he used the wand, even though he knew it had stopped Lucius. Of course it would react to the necromancy he had used. He should have thought of that before he had begun to wield it.

Draco stood beyond the light, continually stretching his hands out, feeling at the edges of the barrier with his fingers. Harry wished he could touch him. He had reached out himself, and the cobra had hissed, and he had had the strong sensation that he would lose a finger if he reached one inch beyond its tight, guarding body.

So he stood helpless, and meanwhile the storm of change that would decide his future raged around him, showing no signs of slowing down.

Harry licked his lips and fastened his gaze on Lucius, who now looked like a banner—a white banner, with the only stain his figure worked in bold black thread in the middle—draped across the snow. He didn't know what it meant. Portillo Lopez had said the wand would destroy creations of necromancy, including the living dead, not change them into artwork.

_If I'm going to die here, _Harry thought, glad that he had almost died so many times before so that he could think with amazing clarity, _I'm going to at least give Draco his answers about what exactly happened to his father._

He took a step forwards.

The wind shrieked at him, the songs of birds changing to the noise of clashing swords. Harry wondered about that at first—it seemed to him that swords would indicate death—and then remembered what Portillo Lopez had said about this being a weapon of change. The sword motions of dead men would never change, but the living ones could fight with passion, and the sound shifted back and forth in his ears as though first one side and then the other were losing.

"Harry!" Draco's voice was barely audible above the swords.

Harry shook his head at him—he knew no way to defeat this, and he had been stupid, and he was sorry—and took another step forwards. If he could just touch the white cloth, he thought he might have the answers. It certainly wasn't natural. It shimmered at the edge, and now and then he caught a flicker of movement from Lucius, too, as if he wasn't stitched there but trapped. But Harry could also see the stitches that made him up.

_One last mystery to solve, _he thought, closing his eyes as he forged forwards and then reached out one hand to caress the edge of the banner. _It's appropriate that I should die doing this, if I have to die._

He touched the edge of the banner, cold and silky beneath his fingers for a moment before it dissolved. The light broke through the barrier of the cobra at the same time.

Silence swallowed the world.

Harry opened his eyes. He had expected death to hurt rather more, and—well, he didn't really know what he had expected _after _he was dead. Oblivion, maybe. But surely this silence should have come along with the pain, not just by itself?

He drifted in a shining world, all of it as white as the banner. Now and then Harry caught a glimpse of something shifting in the distance, forming shapes like the outlines of stones set in a wall, though they always dissolved. Or there was the shape of a cobra, or the shadow of a waving banner, or the same blast of light he had seen when the wand went off. Harry didn't know where he was, but he didn't think it was the place he had been supposed to go if Portillo Lopez's wand had murdered him.

The drifting sensation started to stop, and Harry realized that he was falling.

He shivered and reached for his wand. He still had it, but when he held it up and tried to shout incantations that he hoped would stop the fall, he discovered that he _didn't _have his voice.

Harry snarled silently. Was this going to be the way he ended, then? After everything he'd survived, after Voldemort and Nihil's infection in his blood and the necromancy and dying to save the world from Voldemort—

Harry stopped.

He had been in a white world like this once before: when he died and went to King's Cross Station to speak with Dumbledore. No, it hadn't been long, but the memory had returned to him like a dream now that he was once again in a place that resembled it.

He wasn't sure how much of the King's Cross Station dream he should trust; this time, no friendly Dumbledore had appeared to help him. But since he had died once and come back to life, maybe that was why the necromantic weapon was reacting to him so strangely.

And that might mean he still had a chance to control what was happening to him and get back to the real world. Or at least find out Lucius's secrets so that he could give them to Draco the way he had wanted to.

Harry put his wand back in his pocket and struck out in a certain direction, sticking his arms in front of him as if he was swimming. He saw the outlines of stone walls, like the walls of the place where he had met Dumbledore, start reforming around him, and there were waving banners, too. Harry chose the "direction" that contained the most of both and set out towards it, bowing his head against the pressure of the wind that still assaulted him sometimes.

The place rippled and bulged around him, and Harry felt a blade whisk through his hair. Somewhere, somehow, the weapon was still trying to hurt him.

He didn't care. He swam.

* * *

The light was now so bright that Draco couldn't see anything on the hilltop at all.

But the pressure of the wind against him was gone. Draco wrapped an arm around his head, to deter anything that might come flying at his face, and pressed in. His legs were tensed in case he stumbled over something, and he wondered what would happen if he touched Harry's body and he didn't respond.

However, he didn't stumble over anything. When Draco finally removed his arm from his face, he found that he was standing on the other side of the hill, on the slope that was beginning to lead downwards.

A chill struck his spine. The hill wasn't that large. He couldn't have stumbled past both Harry, especially not past Harry's body, and the banner that had somehow contained his father.

He turned around.

The snow on the hilltop wasn't thick enough to hide the figures that lay there motionless: a human body, still encircled by what looked like the body of a large snake, collapsed over a patch of cloth whiter than the snow.

Draco began to walk towards them, his fingers clenching down on his wand and his mind blank. He didn't know what he would do when he reached them. The distance between them and him seemed to have increased. Perhaps he never would.

* * *

Harry struck something solid at last, and reached out and clenched his fingers into it. As he watched, it become more and more solid, forming into a white stone wall with cracks between the stones. Harry could make them into fingerholds, and he promptly did so, while looking around and up. He had seen the banner waving in this direction, or something like the banner. He had to find it and take secrets back out of this strange place to give Draco some peace about his father.

He didn't know why he was so determined on that. But he was, and so he caught a shimmer from beside him and released his hold on the stone at once, reaching out to grasp it.

The banner burned his fingers this time, before melting like hot snow. Harry snarled a curse and closed his hand into a fist, trying to keep hold of as much as he could. He _would _find out what the fuck was wrong with Lucius, if he was the living dead or a ghost or something else, and he _would _bring it back to the surface. He had probably destroyed Draco's last chance to find out what had happened to Lucius, or whoever that had been, with Portillo Lopez's weapon. So he owed him this.

Then images began to unscroll in his head. Harry caught his breath and concentrated.

* * *

Draco knelt beside Harry and brushed the snow away from his face. It was so still and pale that it left no doubt to Draco about what had happened. And his chest beneath Draco's hand didn't move.

There was no pain like this, Draco thought. There had never been any pain like this, not even when he killed the cat after he bonded it as his familiar. Then, his soul had been torn apart by pain that speared to the center of him. This time, the center was simply gone, and he didn't think he would ever recover it.

"I trusted you," he whispered, hardly conscious of what he was saying, and leaned down to put his hand on Harry's forehead, as if he was checking for a fever. "And you _left _me. So much for your advice that I should express my trust and love more openly. My father left me. My mother had to flee. And you—"

The pain was too great even for anger, though, and Draco did something that in the numbness of his brain made perfect sense. He bent down and pressed his lips to Harry's, tightening his hands on Harry's shoulders. People would keep him away from the body when he took it back to the Ministry, he _knew _they would. His friends had never thought Draco should associate with Harry in life, and they would be sure that Draco had killed him. This was probably his last chance to kiss the man he loved.

Once, Harry had kissed Draco because he needed to pour his compatible magic through Draco's lips. Draco thought it was that when he felt something stirring behind Harry's lips and pouring into him.

It wasn't.

* * *

Harry saw a damp, dark, tiny little cell. Someone held a candle near the bars, which flickered and danced and cast shadows everywhere. He wondered at first why they would use a candle instead of a _Lumos _Charm, and then the person holding the candle shifted and he saw the ragged edge of the grey cloak that the guards of Azkaban wore. The prison probably had wards to detect the use of unauthorized magic.

"What do you mean, you can't get me out of here?" Lucius Malfoy hissed, his hands clenching on the bars.

Harry personally wouldn't have recognized Lucius, but a certainty that wasn't his own thrummed through his bones and aided him. His hair hung around ragged and dirty around his face; someone had tried to cut it, probably with a knife, and hadn't done a very good job. His fingernails were broken and his hands encrusted with grime. His eyes had gone so wide and desperate that they no longer looked like the cool grey that Harry associated with Draco. He could have been any prisoner—if not for the faint platinum color of the hair that Harry could discern under the dirt, and the Malfoy bone structure that he knew as well as if he had seen it in the mirror every morning.

"I mean that things have changed." The guard's voice was flat and uninterested. "The people I thought I could bribe are more resistant than I thought. You're not going anywhere."

"I can get you more," Lucius said quickly. Harry pitied him then, because his voice was too fast, and he didn't sound like the haughty aristocrat he obviously wanted to play, but like anyone else trying to bargain for his freedom and his life with limited means of payment. "Money is no problem. What do you want?"

"It doesn't do any good," the guard said, shaking his head. "If I have too many Galleons, I can't spend them. People will just ask where I got them. And the market for the goods I can buy with the money is drying up. They're tightening security. Someone nearly escaped last week. I think it made them paranoid."

"You _must _help me," Lucius said, with a flicker of the proud tone that Harry recognized from the times he would scold Draco for staying up too late and letting exhaustion ruin his good looks.

Harry paused. _How do I know that? _

He reached out and felt another presence in his mind, shifting around. He would have been more worried about it if the scene in front of him hadn't been so compelling.

"No," said the guard. He still sounded flat, not hostile. Harry knew that was probably worse for Lucius than anything else. He needed people to respond to him, to his existence, to his importance. "There's nothing I can do, I told you. And if you try to hurt me in any way, then you just won't get your meals." He turned and walked away, carrying the candle with him. Harry found that he could still see in the darkness, though, as if they had adopted the sight of Lucius's own dark-adapted eyes.

Lucius rocked back on his heels and clenched his hands on his knees. Then he began to speak in a low, steady voice that wouldn't echo beyond his cell.

"I curse you. I curse you, walls and bars that stand between me and my destination. I curse you, enemies who put me here. I curse you, Harry Potter, wherever you are." He lifted his head, and his face was haggard. "You could have fought harder for me."

Shadows pooled in the corners of the cell. Harry looked instinctively for the wand in Lucius's hand, and then told himself not to be stupid. Azkaban prisoners weren't allowed wands, and Lucius wouldn't have had to rely on bribing the guard if he had one. He was adept with the Imperius Curse.

_And how do I know _that?

The shadows began to hiss and writhe. Harry stared at them. Was this another example of wish magic, the way Nihil had used it to join his brother and himself? But he would have expected the wish magic to either get Lucius free or simply ensure that the obstacles to his freedom vanished.

Lucius fell asleep. The shadows reached out and surrounded him, dancing up and down along his body. Then one of them turned away from Lucius and began to grow as though a second person were standing in the cell.

Before it was done, it became obvious that that was exactly what was happening. The second Lucius stood up, smoothed his hands up and down his body, and admired himself for a moment as if in an invisible mirror. Then he turned and walked out through the walls as though he were a ghost.

_A shadow, _Harry thought incredulously. _A shadow of Lucius's hatred and curse. _

And there the vision ended, and Harry felt as though he were rushing back to the surface of an ocean he had dived into.

* * *

The best moment of Draco's life was when he opened his eyes and saw Harry breathing.

He had seen the vision of his father and the shadow parting from his father's body, too, and he knew that he would have to deal with them eventually. But for now, he wrapped his arms around Harry and pressed his cheek against his chest and waited, eyes shut, for whatever might happen next.

What happened was Harry's chest heaving and a slurred voice whispering in his ear, "Draco? Is that you?"

"Who else would it be?" Draco muttered, nuzzling further into Harry and wishing that he didn't have to make decisions like an adult. He would have liked to stay like this, resting against Harry like a child, while Harry wrapped his arms around him and did what he did best: protecting Draco. "Who else is insane enough to follow you out into the snow and then try to reach you when you do a stupid thing?"

Harry's laughter was weak and bubbling. "Ah, yes. I forgot that I'd used a necromantic ritual right before I used that wand."

Draco shook his head, because all the words he could say about that would be too bitter for his happiness. He would scold Harry later. "You saw what happened to my father?" he asked instead.

Harry's breath caught, and he stroked his hands down Draco's back. "I _knew _I felt a second presence in my mind," he said. "And I was thinking things about Lucius that I couldn't possibly have known. Your mind must have joined with mine somehow." His arms tightened. "Yes, I saw."

"I kissed you," Draco whispered. "I think that joined us the way our first kiss did. Remember? When we needed the compatible magic while we were fighting Nihil's grief magic?"

"How could I forget that?" Harry shifted and sat up. Draco came with him, blinking in the dazzle that was the sun reflecting off the snow. "Now. I think I know how to interpret what happened to your father, but I need your help. Let me know if anything sounds wrong, all right?"

Warmth that was not the fading charm gripped Draco. Someone else _was _taking over the hard decisions for the moment, such as stating Lucius's fate aloud. He curled up against Harry and looked into his face.

"Lucius never escaped from prison," Harry said quietly. "Certainly not in the way he told you he did. I'm afraid that it was his body the Ministry found, killed while he was trying to escape. What you saw was his shadow, who came to you because it separated from the rest of Lucius. The shadow of his hatred and his curse."

"It just makes no sense," Draco muttered, shaking his head. "I know that my father never had any power like that, or it would have manifested during the war with the Dark Lord. I know that he was more desperate then than he ever looked in the vision."

Harry nodded. "But I don't think it was exactly related to that. I think it's more akin to the unicorn ghosts, who would never have shown up if not for Nihil's disturbance to the world."

Draco's heart surged. "I'd like to believe that," he said quietly, and leaned his head on Harry's chest again. "But is there any way to be sure?"

"I think so," Harry said. "Lucius's shadow left the prison and came to you, after all. It didn't go anywhere else. Did he act like your father?"

"Not exactly," Draco said. "In some ways, yes. My father was always inclined to treat me as though I possessed no independent thought of my own. But I was shocked when he tried to forcibly betroth me to someone else. The man I thought I knew would have found a subtler way to coerce me into what he wanted. And I can't believe that he would ever have mistreated my mother," he added wistfully, though he knew he would never know now. Narcissa and Lucius would never see one another again.

_Among the hardest things I have to do will be telling her that._

"And he went mad when he heard that you were so close to me," Harry murmured. "Lucius cursed me before that shadow left him. I think the shadow was trying to exert his revenge in the only way possible."

"What do you think happened between him and my mother, then?" Draco asked, but he could answer the question himself before Harry did—which was a good thing. This dependency could last only a short time, not more than that. "He probably revealed more and more mad tendencies, because he was made of hatred, not love. No wonder he wasn't vulnerable to the potions that she tried to give him, either. I don't think magical creatures built half of illusion and half of a curse would be."

Harry shook his head. "You probably would have noticed something even more wrong if you had met him again, but you didn't. And thank God you stayed at a distance. I don't know what he would have done to you." His arms tightened possessively around Draco.

Draco finally dared what he hadn't dared before, and turned to look at the snow. The white banner representing his father was gone. He shook his head. "Where do you think he went? And why did he become a picture?"

"I think he vanished," Harry said. "Destroyed by the forces of change and life, or else faded because your father is dead and he couldn't survive for long without the real person. He crumbled at the first serious challenge." He hesitated, then added, "It's only a thought, but I think he became a picture because that's what he was—an image that looked real but wasn't."

"I said once before that you were intelligent and perceptive," Draco murmured, slipping his hand beneath Harry's chin. "I mean it."

Harry kissed him, so passionately that Draco's mouth hurt. He knew he would have to come out of the kiss sooner or later and face the messy reality.

But not right now.


	43. Setting His House in Order

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Forty-Three—Setting His House In Order_

When they finally struggled out of the snow, Harry expected Draco to say that they should head back to the Ministry, or go to Ireland to look for his mother. Harry was willing to do either, although he didn't think they had much of a chance of finding Narcissa, given how well she seemed to have hidden herself.

Instead, Draco touched his forehead and then glanced at the place where the false Lucius had lain in the snow, as though saying farewell, and turned to Harry. "I have to go to the Manor," he said.

Harry wasn't sure he understood the almost challenging look in Draco's eyes, but he nodded. "Then we'll go," he said.

Draco's face relaxed into a smile, and he stretched out his arm so that Harry could take it. "The Manor was already connected to me," he murmured. "I sensed that when I was halfway through the spell, and it was what first warned me that something was wrong. Of course the allegiance of the wards and the house-elves would have transferred to me the minute my father died in prison. The spells to make such a thing automatic were long ago set up by the Malfoy line. This Lucius could only have a shadow of authority as long as my father was still alive and fueling him, I reckon."

Harry nodded. He didn't think he had an answer for that, especially because he knew nothing about how inheritance spells worked. He was straining his knowledge and intelligence giving that explanation of why Lucius's shadow had formed as it was.

For the moment, he was more than happy to let Draco take the lead.

* * *

Draco Apparated them into the Manor's largest courtyard, an open space deep within the house, surrounded by four high walls. Drifting snow lay there, which Draco had never seen happen before. Then again, it required an effort of will to keep the snow beyond the walls, and no one had been here to make it. If Draco had seen a sight like this, he would have known in an instant that something was wrong.

But he hadn't, and so he soothed the self-blame that wanted to score him. Not all of the habits he had picked up from Harry were healthy.

He concentrated instead on the feeling of wards closing around him with the smooth silkiness of water parting as he dived into a pool. He had never thought he would feel that. He hadn't truly been able to conceive a time when his father wouldn't be alive, although he had got used to being without him since Lucius went to Azkaban.

_I have to mourn._

That would come later. At the moment, Draco had more important things to worry about. He strode out briskly, to the center of the courtyard, and pushed against the wards as he did, feeling them flex and snap and gather energy after days of lying dormant.

Harry was right behind him, or Draco would have been worried when he heard him gasp. As it was, the snow had risen up in shapes like waterspouts, and so Draco knew the source of Harry's surprise. He looked back with a wry smile and saw Harry staring at the spouts that carried the snow back over the walls, leaving bare stone and earth where it had been.

"How can you do that without pointing your wand?" Harry whispered. "I didn't know you could do that."

Draco blinked, not having thought that would be what had surprised him, and then reminded himself that Harry had grown up in the Muggle world. He probably thought of magic as something like water that had to be guided and channeled to accomplish useful tasks, rather than being moved through and lived with. Draco would do what he could to remedy that hole in Harry's education.

For the moment, he simply raised his eyebrows and answered, "The wards are connected to me, and when the head of the Malfoy family is here, they act as he wants them to. I want the courtyard cleared."

Harry nodded. There was wonder in his eyes, which went some way to soothing Draco for what had happened today. He smiled and continued his walk to a door on the other side of the courtyard, which he opened, the wards undoing the locking charms and brushing away the snow that had accumulated at the bottom of it.

The corridor beyond was drafty and cold, but house-elves appeared at once, bowing and squeaking and asking for orders. Draco gave them with a haughty sneer that he knew made Harry blink at him, but he didn't care. The elves were happy enough to follow his commands no matter what, and the sneer made him feel better.

Fires were lit, moldy food was thrown out and replaced with better, Warming Charms were cast, and spilled liquids and broken glass—probably shattered in the shadow's tantrums—were cleaned up. Harry frowned and tilted his head in that way that meant he was about to ask a strange question. Draco waited.

"How did the house get like this?" Harry was looking at a faded tapestry on the wall, with trailing threads at the edge that indicated mouse chewing. "I thought house-elves would automatically keep a house in order, even if no one told them to. I don't think anyone told them to keep cooking food and cleaning rooms at Hogwarts."

"In the beginning, orders were given," Draco said calmly. "The house-elves there are linked to the Headmaster. If the school had no Headmaster, then they wouldn't work, which is one reason a new one is always appointed as soon as possible when one dies." Harry's eyes darkened, and Draco knew he was thinking about Dumbledore. Draco continued as if his words had stirred up no memories, though. He didn't want this to stand between them. "And here, if the current head Malfoy doesn't live in the house, the elves retreat to the bare necessities to keep the house from falling down. Lighting fires where they aren't needed isn't one of them."

Harry nodded. "Will they punish themselves for failing to keep the Manor up?"

"Not unless I order them to." Draco's voice sharpened before he turned away. He couldn't bear to talk about house-elves—to argue about house-elves—right now. He had a hard letter to write.

Harry took the hint and followed him in silence to the library, where a fire was already blazing. Elves bustled around, dusting, rearranging books, and cleaning up a scarred table that the shadow had probably used a knife on. Draco commanded that ink be brought; he could already see a quill and parchment in place. Perhaps the shadow had meant to write a letter before Harry lured him out.

One of the elves, clad in a thin strip of gauzy bandage wound about its waist, hurried over with ink, bowing again and again, tears running down its face. Draco took the ink, shook it once to ensure it wasn't frozen, and looked sternly at the creature. "You will prepare bedrooms for us, and a meal. Do you understand?"

"Yizzy is understanding, Lord Malfoy sir!" Yizzy pulled hard on its ears and bounced on the balls of its feet. "The beds is being ready in instants!" It vanished, the air rushing in behind it.

Harry might have been staring at him accusingly. Draco didn't look up to see. He sat down and began to compose a letter to his mother.

In the end, there was nothing he could say that would lessen the difficulty of the blow for her, or the cruelty of the wound. She would blame herself for not having seen the differences between the false Lucius and the real one right away, and there was nothing Draco could do about that either. What he could do, what he tried, was to explain that this hadn't been their fault, that it was connected to the imbalance of magic in the world.

He could give his mother something to lift the blame from her shoulders—this was like an earthquake or a storm—and something to fight.

_While he did not cause it alone, this imbalance in the forces of life and death is tied to the existence of Nihil and the way he raises the living dead. The shadow would never have torn free from my father's body in an ordinary time, but remained a dark wish in his mind. He tried to destroy Harry in some ways, since that is what my father desired, but went astray in others. This is not Father's fault, either. He did not know, and he stayed in Azkaban, and he paid the price._

Draco thought about begging Narcissa to return home, but decided against it. He still didn't know exactly what had happened to her—though he had seen stains among some of the broken glass that made him dread—and he didn't know how many evil memories the Manor might hold. It would have to be her choice.

He finished, and then he turned and held out his hand to Harry. Harry raised his eyebrows, but took it.

"I want to go to bed," Draco said quietly.

He had a cold burning sensation in his chest, as if he had swallowed an icicle. He didn't know what that meant. He also knew that his words had been the right ones to say, but not why.

He didn't care, as it happened. He was the Lord of the Manor, and his father was dead. That was enough truth to bear for one day.

* * *

Harry had expected, without knowing why, that he would go back to the bedroom that he had spent Christmas at the Manor in, but instead the house-elves had prepared rooms in a different part of the house. Draco said it was Lucius's old rooms when Harry asked about it, and in a tone of voice that said he didn't want to discuss it. Harry nodded and opened the door.

The magnificence made him blink. If he'd ever had any reason to think about the room where Lucius Malfoy slept—which he hadn't—he would have imagined marble walls and chandeliers and beds encrusted with so much gold that they weren't comfortable to sleep in. And of course there would probably be enormous gems cut in half and just sitting around. Harry knew that he wasn't adequate to imagine what Draco's life had really been like.

Instead, there was warmth everywhere. Harry could see some gold and gems, but they were discreet: a handle, a small cup that he thought had probably been put on a little table and just looked at, a bedknob. The dominant color was brown because of the wooden walls and the huge stones that made up the hearth. A fire blazed there. Harry blinked and blinked some more, and then turned to face the fire and held out his hands.

He was cold, but he wanted to give Draco some time in the room alone, too.

Draco walked back and forth, and Harry heard sliding noises like he was touching the curtains around the bed and sighs like he was remembering things. Harry kept his gaze on the fire and tried not to imagine what Draco must have felt when he was a child. Maybe he came here when he had nightmares.

Or maybe house-elves comforted him. Harry felt his heart ache. No matter how much he had tried to know and understand Draco during the past few months, since their row over his necromancy, it seemed he always had more to learn.

Draco finally said something, but his words were muffled. Harry turned around, having an odd picture of Draco standing there with one of the curtains wrapped around his face.

He wasn't prepared for what he saw.

Draco stood at the foot of the bed, which was decorated in brown, too, and green so dark that Harry had to look twice to make sure that it was green. There were silver pillows, but otherwise it didn't look much like a Slytherin bed. Draco had taken off his robe and dropped it on the floor, which was so messy and unlike him that Harry just stared. Draco's fingers were on the buttons of his shirt.

"Uh, you're tired?" Harry asked. Of course it made sense, but he hadn't expected it for some reason. He turned towards the door. "I'll ask the house-elves to show me to my room, so you can get some sleep."

"There is no other room."

Harry felt as though he had just stepped off a cliff, or at least a stair that was higher than he'd thought. He turned around with his heart pounding in his ears, and saw that Draco was shrugging off his shirt, to drop it on the robe. The firelight was bright enough to show the old scars on his chest from the _Sectumsempra _spell.

"Draco," he said. "Are you sure?" Then he realized his throat was so dry that Draco probably hadn't heard him. He swallowed and repeated the question.

"Yes," Draco said. "I just found out my father is dead. I had to write and tell my mother that. Portillo Lopez is covering for us at the barracks, so we don't need to be back by a certain hour. I'm cold and I'm lonely. And I want you." He had started on his trousers, and didn't look at Harry as he spoke, seeming to assume that of course Harry would stay where he was and agree.

_Well, _Harry thought as he watched more and more of Draco surface from his clothes, gleaming like a dolphin, _I'm not an idiot, whatever he thinks sometimes._

He walked back across the room, feeling the carpet slide under his feet like grass, and put his arms around Draco. Draco kicked off his trousers before he leaned up and kissed Harry hard enough to make his mouth smart.

This was different from the other times, Harry knew at once, because Draco was straining against him as if they were wrestling, and making small snarls in the back of his throat, and his arms closed around Harry in a way that would leave bruises. And then he turned and tumbled them onto the bed, and Harry felt suddenly overdressed.

He started pulling and clawing at his clothes, while Draco helped by tugging off his boots. Then Draco was on top of him, moving with his mouth open, his teeth bared, his eyes so wide and hazy that he looked like he was drowning.

Harry opened his mouth to say something else, and forgot it as Draco kissed him. And then they were struggling against each other, pushing at each other, crying and gasping in ways that Harry had never heard.

They were both getting naked, if not there yet. Draco still had his socks on, and they got caught somehow in Harry's robe buttons and had to be kicked at. Draco yanked at Harry's shirt and got it tangled around his shoulders. Harry dropped his glasses on the floor and then thought it would probably be a good idea to pick them up, fold them, and put them on the table.

Draco crawled back atop him when they were both naked, staring at him with eyes so wide and dilated that Harry got concerned again and reached out for him. Draco slapped his hands down and then closed his eyes, a brief frown contorting his features.

A small pot lifted from a table nearby and settled on the bed. Harry started, and then reminded himself that Draco could do things like that because of the wards. Draco reached out and grabbed it.

Harry gave him a shaky smile, knowing now what was going to happen next, not sure if he was ready, and wanting to do it anyway. "Are you—Draco, are you sure?"

"I _told _you that," Draco said, and his voice was impatient enough to reassure Harry that at least he wasn't so entirely under the influence of hormones not to be himself. Draco reached down, pried open the sealed clay lid of the little pot, and pulled out a thick fingerful of blue goo. He reached back towards his arse, brow furrowing as if he were working on a difficult problem in Concealment and Disguise, or trying to decide yet again if Ketchum was a good instructor despite being Muggleborn.

Harry watched without breathing, which became uncomfortable in a minute. He let it out in a whoosh, and Draco raised one eyebrow and looked down at him, asking him without words what he was doing.

Harry gave him another shaky smile. "It's just nerves," he said. "Draco, I've never done this before—with a man, at least. Do you realize that? I don't know if I'll make it very comfortable for you."

* * *

Impatience raged in Draco, flames that danced up and down and felt as if they were real, they scored his back and chest so fiercely. Didn't Harry _understand? _He was doing this to help him move past his grief, because he wanted Harry, and because fucking would help him get rid of all the emotions that boiled in him with no place to go. The last thing he wanted was for it to be _comfortable._

To make the point, he shoved one more goo-slick finger into himself, catching his breath against it, then sat down on Harry's cock, which was more sensible than the rest of him and already pointing almost where Draco wanted it to go.

It burned more than the impatience did, and Draco clenched his jaw down on a yell. But he sank deeper, or lower, whatever the appropriate word was here, working Harry further into him, and Harry gasped and went white and twitched as though he was going to die, which Draco thought was _not appropriate. _

"Breathe, Harry," Draco said, his own voice a high, breathless squeak. Harry should have been the one saying that to him, he thought mindlessly, if all the words he'd overheard in the Slytherin boys' bedrooms down the years were accurate.

It _was _hard to breathe. And he was so full, in a way that reminded him of the way he sometimes felt after a day, crammed full with the events of it, and waiting to fall asleep so he could forget at least some of them.

"Dr-Draco…hnnh…"

Draco forced his eyes open—the pressure of Harry's cock in him seemed to have mashed his eyelids down, which made no sense—and looked at Harry. He lay on his back, of course, beneath Draco, his mouth open and his breaths coming so fast that he sounded like a Muggle machine. Or what Draco imagined a Muggle machine sounded like; he hadn't heard that many of them, after all.

He bent down and whispered in Harry's ear, wriggling his arse so that Harry's cock would shift about a bit, "Surprising?"

"Hnnh," said Harry again, which seemed to be his new language.

Draco laughed—he was getting his breath, finally—and leaned back, rocking and shifting slowly so that they could both have a chance to get used to this. Harry's legs trembled. Draco's legs trembled. Everything hurt and burned fiercely enough that Draco half-wanted to get off and lie down on the bed beside Harry to wank him to climax as usual. But only half. "I know—I can't wait—"

His shifting paid off, and Harry's erection stabbed against his prostate.

Harry screamed, and bucked. Draco rode him still, eyes clenched shut again, hands clutching Harry's hips and chest. He felt as though someone had put _another _cock inside him, the sensation was so sudden and shocking.

When he looked at Harry again, Harry's mouth was hanging open, and he panted, and there were small wet noises emerging from his mouth that weren't pants. He looked at Draco as if he were the center of the universe.

"Ready?" Draco asked, and began to ride.

* * *

Harry had never done this before, but it wasn't as though he was _completely _unprepared. He knew what happened between two men when they had sex. In fact, he had been prepared for that to happen when he and Draco first started sleeping together, and it had been a wonderful surprise to find out that you could do just as many things with hands and mouths as you could with cocks and arses.

But then Draco had chosen this, and Harry didn't want to deny him, and now he _really _didn't want to deny him. Even if he had pictured something rather different, sex shared with laughter instead of tears.

Or were there tears? Draco had his eyes shut fiercely as he rocked above Harry, his mouth set in a scowl, but no tears stained his eyes when he peeked down at Harry. His hair was wet, but not with weeping. There were places on his body that gleamed with scars, but no new wounds. Harry reached up to trace the lowest of the _Sectumsempra _marks with a finger, and Draco shuddered and moved faster.

And the heat and the tightness that were clasping his cock were incredible.

Harry shut his eyes and ran his fingers over Draco's skin, touching here, stroking there, caressing and tweaking in different places. He was going to come soon. He hoped Draco wouldn't be horribly disappointed when he did, because Harry didn't have the legendary endurance that the _Daily Prophet _liked to talk about him having when they speculated about his sex life.

Then something hit his chest, and he blinked and looked down, to find Draco's penis dripping there.

Oh, of course. There was something he could do to ensure that Draco didn't simply sit there with a limp and soft cock inside him and have to wank himself. Harry reached out and encircled Draco's erection with his fingers, tugging.

Draco's jaw tumbled open. His hair flew behind him as he stared down at Harry, evidently stunned that Harry had remembered to touch him at all. Harry gave him an apologetic smile and pulled harder, tightening his fingers, trying to think of how he could most imitate for Draco the clutch of Draco's arse.

Something that resembled an indignant wail started in the depths of Draco's chest and then broke free. His arse clamped, his thighs clamped, his fingers sank into the skin of Harry's hips, and Harry would swear even the skin of his cock writhed as if trying to hold Harry's fingers there when he began to come.

Harry licked his lips as he watched the dots of white form across his stomach and chest. He was greedier about Draco's orgasm than he had been about any of the rest of it, he realized in some surprise. He could have lain there and watched Draco come and not done any of the rest of it—

Not done—

The thoughts fragmented, and his body lurched up as he came into Draco. His hands flailed, open, on the sheets, and then closed down and tore something, from the sound. Draco laughed, hair bouncing again, neck shaking, gasping a few last times in pleasure.

"Nothing like it, is there?" Draco sounded smug.

Harry shut his eyes and tried to say something, but he couldn't. Draco's arse was hot and slippery from _him_. He knew this coupling had mostly been for Draco, to ease his emotions, but Harry felt it as a gift that he didn't know if he could ever repay.

He tried. When Draco rolled off him and snuggled down beside him in the sheets, Harry turned and kissed him, open-mouthed, shut-eyed, seeking.

Draco smiled, and touched his face, and was silent.


	44. Bound in the Bones

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Forty-Four—Bound in the Bones_

Draco woke when Yizzy brought his mother's letter to him. Harry was still asleep, and Draco settled down to read it while keeping one hand on Harry's flank. He didn't want Harry waking up because of the lack of warmth, or missing him.

_My son, _the letter began. Draco relaxed. She would have used exclusively his name to address him if she was displeased with him.

_I had suspected something was wrong, though, of course, there is no way that I could have come near the truth. Your father, or what I must now call the shadow of your father, did not speak to me as he used to. He did not seem to remember many of the old memories I would have expected him to recall without trouble. He was unexpectedly silent when I waited to hear his voice. I think he struggled to recall what he should do from moment to moment. Perhaps distance from his creator caused that, or forgetfulness of the purpose that he came into being to fulfill._

_I will mourn your father, but to my mind, it is better for him to die in Azkaban, in pursuit of an escape, than for him to have become the man I was familiar with in the last several months._

Draco winced, both thankful and ashamed. It sounded as though his mother had had to bear far more in those months alone with the shadow in the house than she had ever told him.

"Draco?" Harry muttered from behind him, and one bare palm draped across Draco's stomach. "Are you all right?"

"Yes," Draco said, and turned away to nestle down beside him. The only thing remaining on the parchment was Narcissa's signature, under the words _Your loving mother. _"My mother is fine. I don't think that the shadow made it a priority to find her after she disappeared, or he might have been able to."

"I'm glad he didn't," Harry whispered into his ear. "Are you ready for one more shagging session before we return to the Ministry?"

Draco laughed and allowed himself to be drawn down to Harry's chest, where they kissed and then began energetically to explore each other's bodies again.

* * *

They remained at the Manor for a few more hours, while Draco advised the house-elves on what to do while he was absent from the house, strengthened the wards, and rearranged a few heirlooms, or what looked like heirlooms. He didn't tell Harry for certain, and Harry didn't ask. He was wondering how overwhelming it must be to be told that your father had died when you were at the age when you remembered him.

Draco was holding up well, so far. Or maybe he didn't want to cry in front of the servants, Harry thought, as he watched Draco giving carefully stressed orders to a circle of elves. Hermione would hate the sight. Draco thought the elves loved their servitude. Harry didn't know the truth. Maybe it lay somewhere between the two extremes.

_Or maybe it doesn't, _he thought, as he watched Yizzy, the elf who had served them breakfast and brought Draco everything he asked for, embrace Draco's legs in ecstasy and then hurry off to carry out Draco's instructions. Draco had put him in charge of maintaining the kitchens and making sure there was always a meal available if Draco and other guests wanted to come here at a moment's notice.

"That's all done," Draco said at last, as they began to walk away from the Manor later that day. "I didn't think it would be so—simple. And it makes me wonder if I did Dark magic for nothing."

Harry started to answer that Draco couldn't have known the Manor would already be linked to him, and then realized Draco was talking about the ritual that had led him to bond and then kill the black cat. Awkwardly, he put one arm around Draco's shoulders. "I'm just as much to blame as you are, come to that," he said. "If you want to think about it that way. I could have opposed you and discouraged you, but instead I went and bought the bloody cat. Don't worry about it, Draco."

Draco leaned against him for some time in silence. Harry stood there and let him. He felt warm and content. He and Draco were lovers in a way they hadn't been before, and Harry didn't think it was his imagination that Draco trusted him more now, that he was leaning on him more.

"Thanks," Draco said at last, standing back up. "Now. Portillo Lopez said she would lower the anti-Apparition wards in her quarters for a whole day, but we've been gone for more than that. Where do you think we ought to Apparate?"

"The entrance of the Ministry will do," Harry said. "We should use glamours to disguise ourselves, though. From there, we can go to the Atrium and use the Floo connections to reach our rooms without anyone being the wiser."

Draco nodded, and they spent a few moments darkening the tint of each other's hair and creating thick glasses made of light and air that would hide their eyes. They were simple disguises, but Harry didn't think they would be under observation for long. The Atrium was always busy, people hurrying along on their own business with hurried glances to spare for two ordinary-looking men. They would make it.

Harry wondered what Hermione would say about his sudden feeling of confidence and strength. Probably that it was inspired by hormones and nothing else, he thought with a muffled chuckle. Well, he could ask her soon.

"What's so funny?" Draco asked.

Harry drew him close with one arm for the Side-Along. "Tell you later," he said, and Apparated.

They appeared in the middle of the road that Harry remembered, the one that led to the phone box concealing one entrance to the Ministry. He took a step forwards and then paused, frowning. Something wasn't right. There was a sound that should have been there and wasn't, or a presence that should have been missing and was there. Uneasily, Harry looked around, wondering if Nihil or a servant of Nihil's was watching them.

"There should be magic here," Draco whispered a breath later. "Around the entrance, if nothing else. There isn't."

Harry turned to face him. Draco's eyes were wide behind the fake glasses, his face as pale as chalk, and he had his wand out despite the chance of being spotted by Muggles while they were on the street. "Are you sure?" Harry whispered, and did his best to sense what Draco had sensed. He couldn't sense magic specifically, but maybe that was why the street felt both quieter and louder than normal.

"Yes," Draco said, and began to walk rapidly towards the phone box. Harry followed, hoping that no one was looking at them too hard, and ready to glare at anyone who was.

The phone box remained where it had always been, but when Draco picked up the phone, there was no answer, no matter how many buttons he pressed. He traded a grim look with Harry and then whispered another spell, one Harry didn't know, accompanied by several jerky motions of his wand.

"The anti-Apparition wards are gone," he whispered when the spell had apparently worked, or failed, or faded. "On the one hand, that means nothing good happened. On the other hand, it means that we should be able to get right into the Atrium." He held out his arm, and Harry clasped it with only a moment's hesitation. He wasn't going to ask if Draco was sure, not when he was this upset.

They vanished and reappeared in the Atrium. No one was there. Harry looked up instinctively and saw that the statues on the fountain were still in place. He relaxed marginally. It didn't look as though battle had come here, at least.

But the continued silence was ominous. The Ministry was _never _this empty in the middle of the day, and usually not even at night.

On the other hand, Harry thought he would have heard a battle if it was happening, and there was no taint of necromancy in the air, the way he had learned to sense. He touched Draco's arm, and without speaking, they stepped over to one of the fireplaces. Harry tossed a pinch of Floo powder into the flames—nothing had disturbed the bowls of powder that sat on the mantle—and called out, "Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy's room!"

The powder burned out, dead and black, instead of catching in the fire. The flames whooshed once, but remained ordinary flames. Draco snarled softly under his breath and reached up to clutch at Harry's arm with one hand.

"I've seen that before," he whispered. "It's what happens when the destination doesn't exist anymore." He dragged in a deep breath. "When it's been destroyed."

"Stand where you are."

The voice from behind them was immediately recognizable, but that didn't reassure Harry as much as it should have, considering that Nihil might imitate it for his own reasons. Nonetheless, he froze and held Draco still when he would have turned around. There was a tense, strained quality to the voice that Harry didn't think it wise to provoke.

Ketchum prowled around in front of them—a battle-damaged Ketchum. His hair was singed, the top of his left ear missing, and one eye swollen so shut that Harry was surprised he could see well enough to aim his wand. But his grip on the wand was steady, and he examined them in silence with a grim expression.

"You should have been with Portillo Lopez when the attack on the barracks came," he said. "If you are really Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy. Stand still and don't resist when I interrogate you, and I might believe that you are who you look like."

Draco gave Harry a single startled glance, and Harry understood why. They were wearing the glamours, but Ketchum had identified them at once. Harry wasn't sure how. He didn't think they needed to know. The important part was that Ketchum was on edge, almost ready to kill someone, and they should play along.

"Yes, sir," he said, and put a hand on Draco's arm, clutching down hard. Whatever Ketchum was going to do, he sounded like he didn't think they would enjoy it, and Draco might resist because he hated Ketchum's blood.

Draco sniffed once, but was quiet as Ketchum ran his wand up and down the length of their bodies. His eyes were dark, his face grim in a way that Harry had never seen it. He cast all the spells nonverbally. Harry wondered if that was because he didn't want someone else to overhear or because he was worried about Nihil's servants learning how to get around the spells if they heard them.

Or because of something else, something even more unimaginable. Harry didn't know exactly what had happened, after all.

_Floo powder only does that when the destination has been destroyed._

There was a tightening, snapping sound, and Harry felt as though all his tendons had become stiff. He gasped aloud, shutting his eyes and bowing his head. He didn't know if it was painful, exactly, but it was certainly unpleasant. He heard Draco hissing under his breath beside him, and once he started to step forwards as if he would attack Ketchum. Only Harry's hand on his arm kept him in place.

Ketchum spoke several words, aloud harshly, but a mesh seemed to have formed over Harry's ears, and he couldn't hear exactly what Ketchum was saying. There was a whistle of a wand through air, and then the stiffness all over his body cracked and fell away like ice that had suddenly gone rotten.

Harry looked up, blinking. Ketchum cocked one eyebrow at them and said, "Well, you are Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy. You'll need to explain where you were, and why you conveniently disappeared right before an attack. But I know that the others wouldn't want you to die before they got a chance to interrogate you themselves. Come with me." He turned on one heel and started to lead them back across the Atrium.

Harry followed, looking around for rubble or other more subtle signs of an attack. Nothing revealed itself. He licked his lips, uneasy, and started to ask a question, but Draco got there first.

"What happened?" Draco's voice was as arrogant as though he'd never been through an inspection that Harry suspected he found humiliating, and his eyes narrowed. His hand rested on his wand, though Harry thought he was the only one near enough to see that. "Why must we be questioned like criminals when we have done nothing wrong?"

Ketchum turned his head, although he never stopped walking. His smile was small and grim. "Nihil attacked the trainee barracks. They're gone, and a fair proportion of the trainees are dead, though not as many as he wanted."

Harry shut his eyes. He was so light a wind could have blown him over. His eyes ached with the sting of coming tears, and his hands were as stiff as though Ketchum had never taken off the interrogation spells. He wanted to vomit, or to stand still and wait in one place until Ron and Hermione came up to hug him.

Draco asked the question directly that Harry would have feared to ask, even in his nightmares. "What about Weasley and Granger? Did they make their way out of the barracks before they were attacked? What about Ursula Ventus?"

"Ventus was one of the fiercest fighters against the living dead that hit us," said Ketchum, a faint pride in his voice. "Many people survived who wouldn't have if not for her. She's wounded, but she'll recover. Weasley has a broken leg, but he'll likewise recover. And Granger was fine when I last saw her."

Harry began to breathe again. Of course, now he had to wonder about other casualties, people he had seen every day in passing who he would never see again, people who had partnered with him in classes, or been in the library working on essays at the same time he was. And the library itself, and their rooms. His clothes. His books.

Draco's clothes and books, including the books from Snape's library that he had moved there. Harry winced. He was glad that he had at least brought a few books from the rooms to Draco when they were staying with Portillo Lopez, so that Draco could have those. And his trunk with his photo album and other possessions had been there. It didn't sound as though the instructors' rooms had been attacked.

"What exactly happened?" he asked.

Ketchum shook his head. "The first we knew of it was when the living dead started breaking into the barracks. Nihil attacked them only, and not the Ministry itself or the instructors' offices. I don't know why. We lost the most casualties in the first few minutes, and after that we managed to stabilize and secure the escape routes. More people lived than we had any right to expect." His mouth still pursed itself shut. "But Nihil's creatures stayed to destroy the barracks instead of pursuing us. That means that we have no place to house you, Trainee Potter, and are unlikely to in the future."

He turned so that he was walking backwards, facing them. "Not that it matters. This attack, and the failure of the War Wizards to corner and destroy Nihil as promised, has decided the Minister. The Ministry has shifted to a war footing. We will put you in movable camps, rotating on unpredictable bases, and from now, ordinary classes are canceled. You are going to learn speeded-up versions of what you most need to know. We'll go back to an ordinary structure once Nihil is defeated."

_If that happens, _he didn't say, but Harry felt the echo of the words hanging over his head.

Draco drew a deep, satisfied breath. His eyes were bright when Harry looked at him. Of course, this was the best outcome he could ask for, Harry thought, perhaps even enough to compensate for the loss of his possessions. He would finally have the powerful education that he'd always wanted, and be taught the spells that he wanted to learn, without having to leave the Aurors or Harry behind.

"How are you going to keep the camps secret, sir?" Harry asked. "If Nihil can break through the wards and attack any time he looks—"

"There are new methods of secrecy," said Ketchum shortly, and the smile dropped right off his face. He stopped walking. They were on the far side of the Atrium from the Floo connections now, near a tunnel Harry had never seen before, a black thing that disappeared into the earth. Ketchum pointed his wand at both of them.

"This is your last chance," he said. "This time, we are determined to have no traitors, and no one infected by Nihil. You'll swear the oath and take the binding that we ask of you, or you'll be cast out of the Auror program with a firm Memory Charm in place." He gave them both a blinding smile. "You could, of course, be easily accepted back when the war is over and normal training resumes, no questions asked."

* * *

Draco bristled. Who was anyone to _bind _him to secrecy? He knew what the word meant, in a way that Harry didn't, and no arrogant Mudblood—

Then he let the thought trail off as he met Ketchum's eyes. The man was calm, focused, deadly, in the way that Draco had often demanded the Aurors be but had never expected to see them be. Yes, they should have moved more strongly long ago, and taken sterner measures to eliminate the possibility of a traitor in their midst. Draco couldn't squawk now because the measures also applied to him.

Besides, what would happen if he protested and Harry accepted? Draco couldn't be put out of the program with the memory of their love affair erased from his mind.

"What is the nature of this binding?" he asked Ketchum, before Harry could accept blindly and damn them both.

Ketchum shook his head. "Give you advance warning and you might find a way around it. We don't want to give anyone that chance."

Draco stiffened his arms where they were folded. He didn't want to give up the Aurors, he didn't want to give up Harry, but he also didn't want to give up his freedom. This binding might interfere with that.

"Is there any way that you can test us for infection or whatever it is that you're worried about before you make us take this oath?" Harry asked, giving a quick glance to Draco that suggested he thought he was clever in giving an alternative. Draco glared back impassively and tried not to remember the way that Harry's skin had felt beneath his hands. It was hard to be as angry as he needed to be with a lover. "That way, you can explain it to us and we can still ensure that we won't betray you."

"The method that Portillo Lopez invented to test for infection is still too complicated for me to perform," Ketchum said.

Which meant _no_, Draco translated. Harry still looked as if he would have liked to make peace, but that was impossible. Sometimes, Draco thought, Harry really wasn't as intelligent as Draco would have liked him to be.

"So our choice is to leap blindly into the future and trust you," he told Ketchum, "or to give up everything we've tried to attain in the last eighteen months."

"You do have a talent for summary, Trainee Malfoy." Ketchum smiled in a way that said he knew why Draco was so reluctant and found it funny.

"That's unjust," Draco said quietly. If he couldn't get through to Ketchum with ordinary words, then perhaps he would do it by appealing to his sense of morality. "You know that you would have to give us more choice—"

"If there weren't a war on." Ketchum's eyes glittered. "Yes. But this _is_ a war, and we've been attacked and betrayed too many times. It's _enough_. We'll keep ourselves safe and exile those who won't cooperate. We probably should have done this last year. As I remember, you were one of those who suggested we should." He looked pointedly at Draco.

Draco ground his teeth. _I didn't mean those restrictions to apply to me _would probably not be very well-received by an arrogant Mudblood.

"Let me go first," Harry said suddenly. "That way, Draco can see if it's humiliating or painful, and he can refuse if he wants."

Ketchum gave him a world-weary glance, which Draco thought didn't sit very well on his face. The man was too naturally cheerful. "I told you. The whole point of this is to give you too little time to react or plot a way around it. I can't let him have the days it would probably take to make up his mind."

Harry smiled a little. "So you were planning to cast two bindings at once?"

Ketchum paused, and Harry nodded. "Hermione didn't tell me a lot about bindings, but she did say they were complex and powerful. I don't think you'll be able to cast two of them at once, sir. Someone has to go first, assuming we both want them." He glanced at Draco and reached out to squeeze his arm. "So let me go first. Draco should be able to make the decision directly."

_Idiot, _Draco tried to tell him by seizing Harry's hand and clasping down hard enough that the bones ground together in his wrist. _As if I could lose you, or not go anywhere you go._

Harry only smiled at him while Ketchum nodded in acceptance. "Very well. Step forwards and repeat the oath as I give it to you."

Harry showed no discomfort at staring into Ketchum's eyes, something Draco knew he would hate. And Harry's words as he recited the oath were steady. "I swear not to collaborate with Nihil or any creature or person I know is his or suspect is his. I swear not to betray the Aurors to any enemy, in deed or word, writing or spell. I swear not to fight against the Aurors for any reason, unless to defend my own life or to protect myself or others from a traitor. I swear to come to any of them if I suspect or fear a betrayal, or if I suspect that I or someone else is infected with grief magic or Nihil's taint. "

Ketchum's wand settled on Harry's shoulder. A brief, sudden flash lit Harry's flesh from beneath, letting Draco see the outlines of his bones and the bright joints that connected them. Then it faded and Harry looked normal again.

Draco's skin crawled. Breaking the oath would be impossible with a binding rooted in the bones. You'd have to break all the bones in your body first before you could freely betray the Aurors, and by then you'd probably be dead.

Harry ran his hands up and down his arms as if he thought that he should feel more different than he did, and then stepped past Ketchum, towards the mouth of the tunnel, and turned to look expectantly at Draco.

_Idiot, _Draco thought again. He had no intention of joining Nihil, whose presence in the world had helped to cause both him and his mother grief, but it was still with some resentment that he stepped up to Ketchum and gave the stupid oath. _I can never leave him._

The binding settled into his bones like a second skeleton, or a personal weight attached to each piece of marrow. Draco shivered with distaste and stood rigidly still until the sensation faded. Then he leaned against Harry and glared at Ketchum, wanting the Battlefield Tactics instructor to understand how displeased he was.

Ketchum didn't seem to notice. He stepped up to the mouth of the tunnel. "This way," he said. "The path is protected by wards that only those with the binding on them can pass through, which is why I had to do it first."

Draco thought he heard a faint trace of apology in the bastard's voice, and determined to ignore it. "Why did they attack the barracks and not the Ministry?" he asked.

"Wouldn't we all like to know that," Ketchum said softly, and then led them into the darkness.


	45. Stirrings of Rage

Thank you again for all the reviews! This is the last chapter of _Ceremonies of Strife. _The third story in the trilogy, _Seasons of War, _will begin in a little more than a week.

_Chapter Forty-Five—Stirrings of Rage_

Traveling through the tunnel was strange. Harry felt as if he continually brushed against chains that stopped being real when he walked past them. There was the hiss of stone on metal, almost out of hearing range, and now and then he thought he saw a shaft of light stabbing down. But he could never see it when he turned his head quickly or stared straight and steadily at a place where he thought one had been.

Draco sometimes hissed in the darkness beside him, as if imitating the half-heard sounds. Harry found his hand and gripped it. Draco gripped back fiercely. Harry didn't think he would have allowed Harry to do that if the tunnel hadn't been dark, though, and so mostly hiding them from sight.

Ketchum, ahead of them, was a figure more heard and sensed than seen in the darkness. Sometimes he paused and told them to be quiet, and they were. That happened three times, and on the third occasion, Harry thought he heard a heavy body passing, felt a flick of wind as though someone had flapped a cloak at them.

Or an enormous tail. He swallowed, then tried not to think about it.

Finally, the tunnel started to slope up. Ketchum glanced at them and whispered, "When you step through this doorway, you'll be going through an automatic Portkey. It can be disorienting. Try not to cry out, though, because you wouldn't like it if you screamed in the midst of camp and some people cast curses before they saw who it was."

Harry nodded. He couldn't see if Draco could, but Ketchum seemed satisfied, turning and striding forwards towards a gleam of real light.

There were noises that made Harry think they were emerging onto a Muggle street, but when Ketchum reached the light and abruptly vanished, Harry remembered what he had said about the Portkey door. He gritted his teeth and kept moving.

The nauseating sensation of being whirled through space by his stomach seized him, and for long moments he couldn't even feel Draco's hand holding his, though he had kept his firm grip and they'd both stepped through the doorway at the same time. Then the colors around him, which he'd only now noticed, faded, and Harry found himself on his knees in the middle of a large expanse of mud.

He stood up, glancing at Draco. Draco gave him a firm nod and then dropped his hand, although Harry would have liked to hang on for a bit longer.

There was plenty to see, however, as well as plenty of people to see them behaving in a manner that Draco probably thought was childish. The expanse of mud must have been a meadow once, but Harry thought the new arrivals, as well as Warming Charms to banish the snow, had made it what it was now, churned and ridged and drowned in muck deep enough for a battlefield. Tents were everywhere he looked, in bright colors but with an odd, subdued shimmer above their tops. Charms and wards, Harry thought, to keep them from being spotted by Muggles or Nihil's creatures. The larger tents flew flags with the symbol of the Aurors and an instructor name neatly stitched on them. The smaller tents, which looked big enough for only a few people each, had names of trainees on the flags. In the very center were two enormous, sprawling things, the likes of which Harry had seen at the World Cup.

Harry turned to Ketchum, who was waiting for them. Ketchum nodded at the big tent on the left, a bright blue-and-silver one. "Infirmary." He nodded at the red-and-green one. "Dining hall." He glanced up, beyond them, then, and his voice changed. "I'll leave you to one who knows the schedule of the camp better than I do."

With a few quick movements, before Harry and Draco could even turn around, Auror Gregory was in front of them.

Harry stared at her with his mouth open. Her face was far harder and colder than he remembered it, and she surveyed them with a gaze that seemed to locate their every weakness and tell them exactly how much she despised it. She wore, instead of Auror robes, brown-and-black ones that probably let her blend into the countryside better, and she carried a thin dark mask in one hand. At least it wasn't white like the Death Eater ones, Harry thought.

Draco found his voice first. "You tried to kill me," he said.

"Because I suspected Dearborn of working with Nihil, and you worked with Dearborn," Gregory said, and turned away, striding further into the wilderness of tents. Draco and Harry had to follow her or be left behind. Draco, Harry saw, looked disgruntled about that. He would be used to leading, now. "As you can see, I was right about Dearborn." She tossed a cool smile back over her shoulder and increased her pace.

Harry, though running to keep up, managed to pinch Draco's arm warningly when he opened his mouth to complain again. They needed to know as much as possible. Gregory was abrasive, but she would probably respond with information if they asked politely.

"Did you come in and join the attack on the defenders' side, ma'am?" he asked.

Gregory laughed. Harry couldn't remember if he'd heard her do that before. Usually she just barked a quick chuckle when someone in her class got wounded. But this went on for a long time and sounded cold and threatening. Several people turned to stare at them, but looked away again when they realized who it was.

"Yes," she said. "I have been gathering forces, people who were weary of Nihil's domination and the ineffectiveness of both War Wizards and Aurors. I learned of the attack an hour before it happened. Though I went to the Ministry first and Nihil attacked the barracks, so that my preparations could not completely prevent the casualties, more people survived than would have if not for me."

Draco caught Harry's eye and gave him a fierce frown. Harry understood the silent message. _She's so arrogant that I don't know if I can work with her._

Harry stroked Draco's arm and asked, "Are you the one who came up with the plan of moving from camp to camp and living in tents instead of the barracks?" He tried to make his voice respectful and admiring.

"Yes," Gregory said. "My people have been doing it for months. The people who lived in the Ministry are softer and don't like it, of course, but if they want to survive, they will. Those who are here are a bit tougher than usual. They would have had to be, to take that oath and the binding. I have high hopes for them." She abruptly jerked to a stop in front of a small, squat tent with red and white stripes. "You need to speak to the ones meeting in here. I know they'll want to know where you were."

She stopped, and then turned her head and stared at them with a slowness Harry thought was meant to terrify. It did a bloody good job, in his case. It was hard to keep standing and look Gregory in the eyes when she acted like that.

"Something is different about you," Gregory told Harry. "I am good at sensing changes in others, now. I had to be when Nihil was trying to plant spies among my group and bring me low." Her nostrils flared, as though she could smell the dark shimmer that had taken root in the back of his head. "We'll talk, you and I."

She was gone in a moment, cloak sweeping behind her, already calling what sounded like challenges to a group of students training with curses in a warded ring. Draco growled in his throat as he looked after her.

"I don't like her," he said. "And she hasn't been changed at all by her exile. Why do they tolerate her?"

"Probably because she saved their arses," Harry told him pointedly as he lifted the tent flap. There was no way to knock and Gregory had seemed to think they should go in immediately, so that was what he planned on. "And she does seem to know more about what's happening around here than anyone else does." He couldn't get over the aura of _competence _that Gregory carried about with her. Maybe part of that was fake, but it was a bloody good imitation if it was.

He had assumed, without thinking about it, that the people waiting in the tent for them would be the instructors, Portillo Lopez in particular, who would ask them uncomfortable questions and scowl but let them go in the end.

It wasn't like that at all.

* * *

Draco halted the minute he stepped into the tent, which made Harry grunt and crash into him. Draco flushed at the undignified picture that he knew they made, but he couldn't help it. He had expected to see Portillo Lopez sitting at the head of the table, since she would probably have the most power over the other instructors if Gregory wasn't there.

Instead, Gawain Robards, the Head Auror, sat there. Draco had seen him only once before, when he welcomed the trainees into their training. He had arms that seemed as if he could pick up a dragon and shoulders that suggested he could carry one. His glasses were in one hand at the moment, as he wiped at them with a cloth. His hair was pale brown and looked as if it had hurriedly been cut short, maybe to remove blood. He stared directly at them with a bleak, composed face.

Rising to her feet next to him was Alice Holder. Draco forgot what her official title was, but he knew that she did all the things it was rumored Robards didn't want to dirty his hands with. She had grey hair coiled at her neck and the dark line of a burn scar like a chain at her throat. She leaned forwards with an intent stare that made Draco unaware of most of the other people in the room, though he could see that Morningstar and Portillo Lopez were there when he glanced out of the corner of his eye.

"Ah," she said quietly. "Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy. Please sit down."

They did, in two chairs that were available at the end of the table, though Draco couldn't decide if the _please _was a good sign or not. Supposedly Holder only said things like that when she was about to eviscerate someone, and you really wanted her to be rude to you.

On the other hand, Draco had had about enough of rudeness from Gregory. He would be glad if someone treated him the way he deserved to be treated.

Holder stepped towards them. No one else in the tent said a word. Draco looked, and saw Davidson and Coronante sitting at the table, too. Davidson had her fingers placed together. Coronante's tongue was caught between her teeth. She saw Draco looking and gave him a sharp glance that was probably meant as a warning.

"It has come to our attention," Holder said, crashing to a halt in front of them, "that the two of you have outstanding information about Nihil that you have not shared with the rest of us." She paused and bent towards them, her nose poised like a beak that was about to scoop out an eye, Draco thought. "Now, you must have taken the oath or you would not be here. I assume that means you are not traitors. What was the reason for your concealing the truth from those who could use it to good effect, then?"

Draco could practically feel Harry getting ready to meet this accusation with truth. He had never been very comfortable about lying to the Aurors, Draco knew, and he would be partially relieved that he could explain about everything.

But if they did, then there was no reason for them to be included in the rest of the Aurors' decisions. And Draco was _going _to have a place there. He pinched Harry's knee hard under the table, which made his indrawn breath turn into a surprised squeak instead of speech, and tried to meet Holder's gaze with one as cold as her own.

"Because of what you would treat us like," he said. "Do you assume that my parents taught me nothing?"

Silence. Robards let his eyebrows climb to his hairline. Holder's expression never changed. "Explain."

"I'm a former Death Eater," Draco said. "Or at least in the service of the Dark Lord." He didn't want to go so far in his defense that they would lock him up for crimes he hadn't committed. "And Harry is the Boy-Who-Lived, someone it would be easy to make into a pawn. You could treat us like those pawns, like toys, and there aren't many people outside of our friends who would object. We kept our secrets and acted the way we did because we wanted to have some power, some _relevance. _You would have tried to keep us from that." He mixed scorn and disbelief in his voice and hoped it would prove to Holder's taste. She was the main one in the room they needed to convince, since Robards would take his cue from her. "Can you blame us for this?"

Holder started to say something, but Robards raised his hand, palm out, fingers spread as though he was hooking them into invisible notches. Holder's mouth seemed to curdle. She nodded a moment later, though, and spoke on smoothly. "An understandable motive. But what makes you assume that you have the right to keep that information to yourself when people are dying? I had not thought you so mercenary."

She was focusing on Harry, Draco saw, who squirmed in his seat. She knew Harry was the weak link in this defense. Draco spoke once again, forcefully enough to draw her attention to him. "Harry has some tender bones, that's true. But he wasn't willing to be cast aside and treated like a child, either, and that was the way the instructors were treating us during the first attacks. Not, 'Oh, people are dying, why don't you offer us any conclusions that you can?' But 'Oh, people are dying, but you're just children, not future Aurors! Don't worry about them!' We've been told it's changed, but I don't see any evidence so far. You're still talking to us like we're those children."

"_Draco_," Harry hissed, but Draco didn't move and didn't take his eyes from Holder. He knew what he was doing, better than Harry did. And he wasn't going to be patted on the head and put on a shelf. No more. No longer.

Holder smiled for the first time—really smiled. Draco had looked at torture devices that made him less uncomfortable.

"You are condemned to participation in the war now," Holder said. "I can promise you an active place, no matter what kind of information you have to deliver. You have sworn the oath and taken the binding, and that means you aren't traitors." She inclined her head. "You have my permission to speak."

Draco fumed at the word "permission," but knew that it would never do to _show _her he was fuming. That would only let her win the contest. He sat up straight and began to recite the facts about Harry's necromancy and how he had discovered that Aran was one of Nihil's constructs and how he feared torture more than death.

The room was silent as he spoke. Davidson leaned forwards. Coronante raised her eyebrows. Portillo Lopez didn't move and didn't act as though she wanted to. Holder would sometimes glide a step closer, and sometimes lift a hand as though tracing her burn scar would give their words more weight.

Robards watched everyone with the same neutral, half-interested gaze, and Draco realized, halfway through the recitation, that he was addressing most of his words to him. He tried to stop. He knew that trick. It was one that Lucius had sometimes used to make Draco confess to more mischief than he wanted to.

Knowing about it didn't make it stop working. Robards might have been an undertow, pulling all of Draco's attention and words towards him. Draco eventually gave up and simply chose his words with care. He wanted to impress without making himself and Harry seem as hapless as they'd often been.

Then he spoke about the imbalance of life and death in the world, the unicorn ghosts, and the shadow of his father. Holder let her teeth click together when he finished, and Draco tried to ignore the sensation that she'd just severed a thread of his life or fate.

"An interesting tale," Holder said when they had finished. "And while I am less inclined to believe one half, the other would explain much." She abruptly faced Harry and gestured with her wand. "_Veritas!_"

Harry's back arched and he cried out in a muffled voice as Holder's spell hit him. Draco reached for him, but an invisible barrier held his hands back. He could only watch while a dark star flared in the center of Harry's chest and spread out to encompass his limbs, turning them transparent along the way.

What replaced his skin was the appearance of parchment scrawled with words—words that would describe his magical ability, Draco knew. There were words he could just make out about the compatible magic, and Harry's skill with Defensive magic. And yes, there was the word _necromancy _in the center of Harry's forehead.

There was also a reference to visions that Draco didn't understand, and _return_. Draco clenched his hands into fists and fought his anger. Holder would win if she saw him enraged. Draco settled for a cool stare at her instead, as if the words being written across Harry were of no interest to him.

He knew this spell. He knew it hurt. And Holder hadn't even given Harry the chance to agree with it of his own free will.

Holder returned Draco's gaze with a faint smile. Draco knew she was Robards's second-in-command, yes, and also his disciplinarian. Rumor said she couldn't be corrupted, that she was fanatically loyal.

But that didn't mean she couldn't be hurt or damaged.

* * *

Holder stepped back when the spell finished and turned to speak with Robards. Harry didn't hear what she was saying at first. His heart was beating too fast and he seemed to be taking two breaths where he only meant to take one. He reached out and clasped Draco's wrist.

Draco rubbed his arm and whispered promises of vengeance. Harry listened with a grateful ear and fought through the temporary deafness that had overtaken him so he could hear what Holder was saying.

"…and a small but persistent gift of necromancy that seems activated with Parseltongue," Holder finished. She gave Harry a glance that had no mercy in it and added, "He is also carrying a powerful weapon that seems aimed at the destruction of the dead."

"That was a gift from me," Portillo Lopez said, and rose smoothly to her feet as she came around the table to retrieve it.

Harry stared up at her. Draco had kept any mention of her Order out of his story, and he was so good at lying that Harry, at least, hadn't noticed any holes. Why would she be willing to expose herself now, when she could potentially get away with no trouble?

Portillo Lopez put her hand on his shoulder and said, so lowly that Harry saw Draco lean over to hear, "You have offered me more hope than I have known since joining the Order. Necromancy might be able to be used as a weapon." She reached out and pulled the ivory wand from Harry's pocket. "And if there is an imbalance of forces of life and death in the world, perhaps mastering the forces of life and change on a greater scale than we have yet done can provide the means to correct it."

Harry gaped,, and tried not to make it too obvious, as Portillo Lopez returned to her seat. No one had objected to her claim that she had lent the weapon to Harry. She seemed to have some kind of power here. Harry wondered if it was because she was the only Battle Healer in the tent, or something else.

"You wanted relevance, Trainee Malfoy," Robards told Draco. "You wanted power. You shall have more of either than you could have desired."

Doubt flared across Draco's face, and Harry knew why. Draco wanted a _lot _of power, and it wasn't as though he would be contented with whatever scraps Holder and Robards would toss them.

"You will be placed at the center of a study program." Robards leaned forwards. "You have uncovered the only solid weapons we have against Nihil. Trainee Potter, you will work with us to use the necromancy as an even greater weapon, and to teach it to others if you can. Trainee Malfoy, you will help us discover _acceptable _techniques of torture that may be used to unmask Nihil's spies."

For some reason, Draco's face turned white and rigid. "We will still be partners," he said.

Robards started to answer, but Portillo Lopez interrupted. "Their compatible magic is too great an advantage to be surrendered," she murmured. "I suggest continuing their extra lessons with Lowell and Weston as well as their new training."

Harry didn't need Draco to interpret the heated glare that Holder sent towards Portillo Lopez. There was a power struggle going on between the two women, and it seemed that neither of them wanted to back down. Portillo Lopez, though, ignored her rival more successfully than Holder did, gazing at the ivory wand in her hands as if it was the center of all her contemplations right now.

"You will remain partners," Robards said. "Next time, Trainee Malfoy, may I suggest that you make your requests in a less demanding tone?"

Draco apologized with humility and grace; you had to be holding his hand, Harry thought, to realize how false it all was. Then they were dismissed from the tent and told to find their friends, since the tent where he and Draco would stay was near them.

Draco shook his head, blinked in the sunlight, and murmured out of the corner of his mouth, "I'm not sure that the camp won't be more dangerous to us than Nihil was. Holder especially."

"Well, they believed us," Harry said, trying to think of good things he could say about the last hour. "And that means they won't be dismissing us from the Auror program as traitors or imprisoning me for necromancy.'

"They hurt you."

Harry winced at Draco's measured tone, and the long, slow look he gave Harry. It was probably useless to try and discourage Draco's revenge. He would only nod and smile and then try to have it behind Harry's back.

In the meantime, he had to admit that he was angry about Holder's spell himself.

"With my magic and your cleverness," he said, "I'm sure that we can turn the circumstances to our advantage."

Draco smiled, but what he would have said was lost in a chorus of excited cries.

"Harry! Malfoy!" Hermione was sprinting towards them, with Ron right behind her, his face flushed.

As Harry held out his arms to embrace his friends, and felt Draco squeeze his shoulder possessively, he could have sworn he felt a pair of cold eyes on his back. Holder was probably watching them from the flap of the tent.

_We're going to survive this, _he thought. _We have to. And Nihil is more of a challenge than Robards's hunting hound._

Hermione's arms closed around him, solid and warm. Ron's followed a moment later.

And from beside him, Draco sent a flood of compatible magic, compelling and cool and powerful.

**The End.**


End file.
